JUNE 29, 1940 SOCIALIST APPEAL The Fourth International Sounds the Call to Struggle!
THE PROBLEM OF WORKERS LEADERSHIP WHAT TO DO NOW?
There remains the question of leadership. Will not the revolution be betrayed this time too, inasmuch as there are two Internationals in the service of imperialism while the genuine revolutionary elements constitute a tiny minority: In other words: shall we succeed in preparing in time a party capable of leading the proletarian revolution? In order to answer this question correctly it is necessary to pose it correctly. Naturally, this or that uprising may end and surely will end in defeat owing to the immaturity of the revolutionary leadership. But it is not a question of a single uprising. It is a question of an entire revolutionary epoch.
The capitalist world has no way out, unless a prolonged death agony is so considered. It is necessary to prepare for long years, if not decades, of war, uprisings, brief interludes of truce, new wars and new uprisings. young revolutionary party must base itself on this perspective. History will provide it with enough opportunities and possibilities to test itself, to accumulate experience and to mature. The swifter the ranks of the vanguard are fused the more the epoch of blockly convulsions will be shortened, the less destruction will our planet suffer. But the great historical problem will not be solved in any case until a revolutionary party stands at the head of the profetariat. The question of tempos and time intervals is of enormous importance; but it alters neither the general historical perspective nor the direction of our policy. The conclusion is a simple one: it is necessary to carry on the work of educating and organizing the proletarian vanguard with tenfold energy.
Precisely in this lies the task of the Fourth International.
The greatest error is committed by those who, in seeking to justify pessimistic conclusions, refer simply to the sad consequences of the last war. In the first place, the last war gave birth to the October Revolution upon whose lessons the labor movement of the whole world lives. In the second place, the conditions of the present war differ profoundly from the conditions of 1914. The economic position of the imperialist states, including the United States, is infinitely worse today, and the destructive power of war is infinitely greater than was the case a quarter of a century ago. There is therefore sufficient reason to expect this time a much more rapid and much more decisive reaction on the part of the workers and of the army.
The experience of the first war did not pass without deeply affecting the masses. The Second International drew its strength from the still almost untouched democratic and pacifist illusions of the masses. The workers seriously hoped that the war of 1914 would be the last war. The soldiers allowed themselves to be killed in order to spare their children a new slaughter. Only thanks to this hape could men have withstood war for more than four years. Today almost nothing remains of the democratic and pacifist illusions. The peoples are suffering the present war without any longer believing in it, without expecting anything more from it than new chains. This applies also to the totalitarian At the beginning of the new revolution, the opportunists vanced countries. War destroys structures, railways, faci will once again strive, just as they did a quarter of a tories, mines; but it cannot destroy technology, science, century ago, to imbue the workers with the idea that it is skills. After creating its own state, correctly organizing its states. The older generation of the workers who bore, on impossible to build socialism on ruins and devastation. As own ranks, drawing into the work qualified forces be their backs the burden of the first imperialist war and if the proletariat is free to choose! It is necessary to build queathed by the bourgeois regime and organizing produc. who have not forgotten its lessons are still far from on those foundations which history provides. The Russian tion according to a unified plan, the proletariat will not eliminated from the arena. In the ears oi the next to the Revolution showed that workers rule can raise even a only restore within a few years everything destroyed by oldest generation, which went to school during war time, very backward country out of deepest poverty. All the war, but will also create conditions for the greatest blos!
the false slogans of patriotism and pacifism are still ringgreater are the miracles open to the proletariat of the ad soming of culture on the foundation of solidarity.
ing. The inestimable political experience of these strata who are now crushed by the weight of the war machine will reveal itself in full force when the war compels the toiling masses to come out openly against their governments.
This Manifesto is adopted by the Emergency Conference epoch arms in hand. The workers should not fear arms: Our theses, War and the Fourth International (1934. of the Fourth International at a moment when, after over on the contrary they should learn to use them. Revolutionstate: The exposure of the utterly reactionary, decaying and murderous nature of modern capitalism, the collapse of whelming Holland and Belgium and crushing the initial ists no more separate themselves from the people during democracy, reformism and pacifism, the unpostponable and resistance of the Allied troops, the German armies are war than in peace. Bolshevik strives to become not only rolling like a tide of fire towards Paris and the Channel. the best trade unionist but also the best soldier.
burning need of the proletariat to find a way to salvation In Berlin they are already hastening to celebrate victory.
from ineseapable ruin places the world revolution with a We do not wish to permit the bourgeoisie to drive untrained or half trained soldiers at the last hour onto the new force on the order of the day.
In the camp of the Allies there is alarm, verging on panic.
Today it is no longer a question, as was the case in the Here we have neither the possibility nor the need to engage battlefield. We demand that the state immediately provide nineteenth century, of simply assuring a more rapid and in strategical speculations concerning the next stages of the workers and the unemployed with the possibility of more healthy development of economic life: today it is a the war. Hitler tremendous preponderance is in any case learning how to handle the rifle, the hand grenade, the now placing its seal upon the political physiognomy of the question of saving mankind from suicide. It is precisely machine gun, the cannon, the airplane, the submarine and whole world.
the other tools of war. Special military schools are neeesthe acuteness of the historical problem that completely cuts the ground from under the feet of the opportunist parties. But isn the working class obliged in the present consary in close connection with the trade unions so that the The party of the revolution, on the contrary, finds a well ditions to aid the democracies in their struggle against workers can become skilled specialists of the military art, spring of inexhaustible power in the consciousness of the German fascism! That is how the question is put by able to hold posts as commanders.
fact that it carries out inexorable historical necessity. broad petty bourgeois circles for whom the proletariat alThis Is Not Our War!
Moreover, it is impermissible to put on the same plane ways remains only an auxiliary tool of this or that faction the present revolutionary vanguard with those isolated in of the bourgeoisie. We reject this policy with indignation. At the same time we do not forget for a moinent that ternationalists who raised their voices at the outbreak of Naturally there exists a difference between the political this war is not our war. In contradistinction to the Second last war. Only the Russian party of the Bolsheviks regimes in bourgeois society just as there is a difference in and Third Internationals, the Fourthi International builds represented a revolutionary force at that time. But even the comfort between various cars in a railway train. But its policy not on the military fortunes of the capitalist the latter, in its overwhelming majority failed, except for a when the whole train is plunging into an abyss the dis states but on the transformation of the imperialist wat small emigre group around Lenin, to shed its national tinction between decaying democracy and murderous fas into a war of the workers against the capitalists, on the narrowness and to rise to the perspective of the world cism in the face of the collapse of the entire overthrow of the ruling classes of all countries, on the disappear revolution.
capitalist world socialist revolution. The shifts in the battle lines at The Fourth International in numbers and especially in By his victories and bestialities Hitler provokes naturally the front, the destruction of national capitals, the occupar tion of territories, the downfall of individual states repre preparation possesses infinite advantages over its predeces the sharp hatred of workers the world over. But between sors at the beginning of the last war. The Fourth Inter this legitimate hatred of workers and the helping of his sent from this standpoint only tragic episodes on the soak national is the direct heir of Bolshevism in its flower. The to the reconstruction of modern society.
weaker but not less reactionary enemies is an unbridgeable Fourth International has absorbed the tradition of the Octo gulf. The victory of the imperialists of Great Britain and Independently of course of the war, we fulfill our ber Revolution and has transmuted into theory the experi France would be not less frightful for the ultimate fate basic task: we explain to the workers the irreconcilability. ence of the richest historical period between the two im of mankind than that of Hitler and Mussolini. Bourgeois between their interests and the interests of bloodthirsty: perialist wars. It has faith in itself and its future.
democracy cannot be saved. By helping their bourgeoisie capitalism; we mobilize the toilers against imperialismy wet War, let us once again recall, speeds up enormously the against foreign fascism the workers would only accelerate propagate the unity of the workers in all warring and political development. Those great tasks which only yes the victory of fascism in their own country. The task neutral countries; we call for the fraternization of workers terday seemed long years, if not decades away, can loom which is posed by history is not to support one part of and soldiers within each country, and of soldiers with up directly before us in the next two or three years, and the imperialist system against another but to make an end soldiers on the opposite side of the battle front; we mobitirea even sooner. Programs which are based on habitual peace of the system as a whole.
the women and youth against the war we carry on. contime conditions will inevitably remain dangling in midrait Workers Must Learn Military Arts.
stant, persistent, tireless preparation of the revolutionaire the other hand, the Fourth International Program of Transitional Demands which seemed so unreal to near The militarization of the masses is further intensified at the front and in the fleet.
sighted politicians, will reveal its full significance in the every day. We reject the grotesque pretension of doing this is our program. Proletarians of the world, there is process of the mobilization of the masses for the conquest away with this militarization through empty pacitist pro no other way out except to unite under the banner of thi of state power.
tests. All the great questions will be decided in the next Fourth International!
Fourth International Holds Conference FRENCH GOV ABANDONS BRITISH ALLIES Speed Appeal Funds SCOREBOARD else suffer unconditional expulsion and fighting men as they could the prime card the French rulers from the party Play their hands on. Under direct had to play when they sat down Taking note of an extensive reBritish inspiration, a General de at the far end of Hitler table.
port from the French Section of Gaulle began a movement in Lon And it is a card of no small use the Fourth International, the don to form a government in ex to the Nazi chieftain. With it bis ile. British newspapers suddenly play against Britain becomes evEmergency Conference condemn(Continued from Page 1) Growth In Latin America lions of toilers everywhere whose friends in the jails of Frenchimed the political line of the Gilbert remembered there was a French en more of a sure thing. France, working class, when for the sec Particularly heartening was the backs are even now straightening perialism; to the heroic soldiers tendency in that organization, a parliament and pointed out that totally stripped of resources and ond time within a generation the organizational Report, which mer up from under the heel of capital of the Fourth International im: tendency which holds defeatist the Petain ministry had acted remaining fighting equipment, be monstrous tanks of militarism corded considerable growth of our ism.
without sanction of the chambers.
taxas Greece, Franco Spain; to milar to that of the Shachtmanand a thousand new horrors of movement in Latin America, The Manifesto Even the dead corpse of demop comes now the jumping off place our brothers in the British colo Burnham minority of the SwP, racy has its uses!
war sweep over the battlefields, where in particular our Chilean for the invasion of the British The chief work of the Confer nies, clamped into dungeons by (Continued from Page 1)
crushing the bodies of millions of comrades, after a process of unas contrary to the program and This split from the British was Isles.
workers in uniform and scatter Heation with large groups of pro ence was the preparation of a Churchill England; to the policy of the Fourth Internation crushed Britain too.
to the four winds in search of reformist Socialist Party, are rapid class. After considerable discus tortured but unyielding, in the centrist character of this group clear after the fall of Paris on sion, the draft proposed by the grip of the Kremlin oligarchy: to the Conference commended the fuge.
ly building a mass organization Only the Fourth Interantional, new section has been consti Executive Committee was adopt our brave comrades placed be Gilbert tendency for its organiza June 14 that the French andes gathered in a World Conference, tuted in Bolivia. In the Argentine ed with only minor amendments. hind prison walls in Minnesotational loyalty in condemning the treating French government smashed the reThis document (printed in this by Roosevelt FBI and to the announced spult of Shachtman would sue for peace, the British has raised its voice to explain to and in Cuba, our sections are dethe workers everywhere in the veloping their influence in the issue) is a unique revolutionary class war prisoners everywhere and Burnham and in declarins made desperate efforts to prevent total of 328. 70 came in this week for the two. week clearest terms the situation con mass movement and striking root achievement. It comprises an allCondemns Deserters themselves categorically for refronting them; to show them the in the trade unions. In other sided panorama of the world in union an offer which amountrevolutionary way out of the South American countries new the throes of war; an analysis campaign, but now we re on the laat lap and way behind.
crushing disaster that is over groups have been formed or are the factors making for the 28 of Meeting in the main to arm the spect in action for majority disit. They even offered France. Appeal good sized amount If it were an early week in the he trans Fourth International for the com cipline and democratic central. led to inviting France to become Just read the scoreboard, see where your branch stands, and formation of this war into a civil ing great battles against capitalism.
part of the British Empire. But taking society disorganized by in the process of formation war for a Socialist United States ism, and for the struggle to win the French capitalists were not do something about it!
capitalism: to speak out to them in Australia our young Com of Europe on the road to a World the world working class to our Sections Support Stand in the votee of courage and hope munist League has made parties Federation of Socialist Republics: banner, the Emergeney Confer. ery section and group which had just then. They were ab already The Conference noted that ev buying any British Empire stock which is the voice of the coming larly gratifying headway in win as well us a call to action which ence also had another task: to taken a decision in the matter thinking that Hitler, Preferred, world socialist revolution. ning over a whole leading cadre contains strategic and tactical pass judgement upon those weak and communicated with the Exe was a better buy. The British of militants from the Stalinis directives.
The Balance Sheet kneed petty bourgeois elements cutive had already unreservediyemissaries were turned back. Evparty Meeting two years after the Greetings to Trotsky formerly in our ranks who at the declared themselves for the main en Churchill himself, by report.
founding of the world party of In Wap Porn Europe The Conference met in the run for cover. It had to deal with conditional Defense of the USSR avall. The armistice went socialist revolution on September In France, despite the convulshadow of the Stalinist those who deserted under the pre and against all attempts to revise Branch Pledged Pald 1938 at Geneva, Switzerland, sions of the war, our section has attempt upon the life of the out text of proposing concrete the program of the Fourth Interthrough.
Chicago. 100. 00 105. 00 the Emergency Conference of the been reinforced by the adherence standing leader of the Fourth In revision of our program on the national.
Thieves Fall Out Upstate New York 50. 00 50. 00 100 balance sheet of the intervening members in the left wing of the resolution adopted by acclama of the USSR, a revision which is Emergency Conference elected andissoluble ally was transformed Then the dirt began to fly. Akron.
10. 00 Based upon this authority, the overaight, the gallant, heroic, in100 period of war preparations and centrist PSOP Workers and to the Conference congratu veloped into of Rockville 00 00 100 Texas. 00 00 100 the outbreak of war itself. It was Peasants Socialist Party. St. Paul lated Comrade Trotsky on his mi Marxist theory and the principles International Executive commit in the British press and in the 200. 00 200. 00 100 fact that the overwhelming med such significant successes in of the Kremlin 1sassins. It on whose foundations the Interna the program and policies of the the positively faultless French England, our section obtain raculous escape from the hands and traditions of Bolshevism, up tee with representatives from all speeches of Churchill into a vena! Boston.
177. 00 154. 00 Maritime Workers.
jority of its sections and mem the Labor Party that the reform greeted Comrade Trotsky and tionat had been constructed.
780. 00 645. 00 83 Lynn 50. 00 40. 00 bers throughout the world had ist bureaucracy felt impelled to his companion, Natalie Sedov, in The Conference unanimously course of the war, and with the High Command was uncovered as withstood the test of these try ban our menabera from affiliation heartfelt words which expressed condemned this revisionist, petty calling of the fall World Congress gang of blunderers who were Flint 105. 00 75. 00 71 ing times in exemplary fashion. even before the war had entered the profound appreciation of rev bourgeois tendency as representMinneapolis 300. 00 200. 00 Toledo 40. 00 25. 50 The Conference unanimously re its critical stage and brought with olutionists the world over for ed by Burnham and Shachtman as soon as conditions make such of Flanders. The matchless leadaffirmed the principles adopted at it governmental repressive mea their devotion to the cause of the in the Socialist Workers Party of a step feasible.
Detroit 75. 00 46. 35 the first World Congress and aures ers of the French people only yes Newark 100. 00 60. 20 world working class and anxiety the United States and by Lebrun, The Emergency Conference of terday were now revealed in uneiaborated for fifteen years pre. In Ireland, the organization re for their continued welfare and Johnson, Trent and Anton in the the World Party of Socialist Rev. Lovely nakedness office graba Philadelphia 25. 00 18. 00 52 Los Angeles 100. 00 51. 50 ceding it within the Trotskyist port indicated, a substantial safety.
movement.
New York City 960. 00 422. 00 group has been formed, request Recalling the great names of tee. It charged them with betray olution closed its sessions, firm outright traitors who had been 44 00 00 While the organizations of the ing affiliation with the Fourth In such martyrs in the struggle of ing the trust placed in them by in the conviction that it had suc selling the country short down Baltimore 25. 00 10. 00 opportunist internationals were ternational. Similar developments the Fourth International, as Leon the organizations of the Fourth cessfully accomplished the work the river for years.
East Chicago 50. 00 20. 00 everywhere showing signs of are reported in numerous other Sedov, Rudolph Klement, Ernst International. The Conference de of consolidating the international From Bordeaux came retorta Portland 50 deep. going disintegration and countries with which the Fourth Wolf, and Ignace Reiss, heroes nounced their futile effort to spit organization, of providing it with that the British were really re2. 50 New Haven nfer International previously had no felled by the hand of Stalin the international organization as 55. 00 11. 50 plete pari sponsible for the disaster because San Francisco 100. 00 10. 00 10 ence was presented with evidence contact.
gunmen and killers, the Confer contemptible treachery. It called a functioning and authoritative they hadn sent enough men or National Office 550. 00 50. 20 that the Fourth International not In general, the Organization ence paused to send greetings to upon the Socialist Workers Party leadership, and of arming it with guns over and were in no position Omaha 25. 00 00 only held its own, but could regis Report presented a picture of a the stout hearted and fearless of the United States to set a time a line of action which alone can to dictate to the French what to Seattle ter a distinct increase in numbers live international party growing militants of the Fourth Interna limit of one month, within which initiate the workers own eman15. 00 and activity in the two years despite tremendous obstacles and tional now languishing in the con all those suspended for particio cipation from the toils of horri motion campaign to split the Indianapolis 10. 00 Oakland 10. 00 past, despite the illegalization of functioning 18 a single unit, a centration camps and prisons of pating Lorain 00 several of our sections since the veritable organized vanguard pre Hitler Germany: to comrades signify their acceptance of the defying war and ruthless exploita French colonies from France and conclusion of the Munich Pact. paring to lead into battle the mil Rigal, Steve, Weitz and their cisions of the SWP convention or tion.
Ito pull in such French warships TOTAL 8929. 50 2218. 75 108 10. 00 87 80 67 64 62 60 51 Buffalo.
40 40 40 33 21 the do. 00 00 00 00 0 0 66