THE ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORIGINS OF FASCISM
[Editorial note: “The article reproduced here was
first published in November 1933 in issue number II of Masses, an eclectic monthly
publication connected to the left of French Social Democracy. It was written by
A. Lehmann, a member of the 'communist workers'
groups' in
ECONOMIC CAUSES
In order to grasp the essential causes of fascism, it is
necessary to consider
the structural changes in capitalism which have taken
place in recent decades. Up until the
first years of the century capitalism was still developing in a progressive manner in which competition
between private capitalists or shareholding companies acted as a motor force of
economic progress. The more or less
regular growth of productivity was fairly easily absorbed by the new markets
opened up during the period of colonization by the imperialist powers. The form of political organization corresponding
to this atomized structure of capitalism was bourgeois democracy which allowed
the different capitalist strata to regulate their contradictory interests in
the most appropriate way. The prosperous
condition of capitalism allowed it to grant the workers certain political and
material concessions, and created within the working class the preconditions
for reformism and the illusion that parliament could serve as an instrument of
progress for the working class.
The possibility of an ever-growing accumulation of
capital, which had been manifested during this initial phase, came to an end
as competition between national capitals became more and more intense
due to the lack_ of new territories to be conquered for
capitalist expansion. These rivalries
caused by the restriction of markets led to the First World War. The same conditions also initiated the
transformation of the structure of capitalism via the progressive concentration
of capital under the domination of finance capital. The war and its consequences accelerated the
process. Inflation in particular, by
leading to the dispossession of the middle classes, allowed the development of
monopoly capital on a huge scale: the
organization of capital in vast trusts and cartels, horizontally and vertically,
which began to go beyond even the national framework. The different strata of capitalism
(financial, industrial, etc) lost their particular
character and were absorbed into an increasingly uniform bloc of interests.
As the sphere of action of these trusts and cartels
began to go beyond the framework of nation-states, capitalism was forced to
influence the economic policies of the
state in a more accelerated manner. The
liaison between the organs of capitalist economic interest and the state
apparatus thus grew closer, and the intermediary role of parliament
became superfluous.
In the context of this structure, capitalism no longer
had any need for parliamentarism, which only survived
at first as a facade for the dictatorship of monopoly capital. However, this parliamentarism
was still useful to the bourgeoisie, since it gave the
dictatorship of a political base_from which_
it could keep alive_reformist illusions in the
proletarian masses. But the aggravation of the world crisis,
the impossibility of obtaining new markets, gradually led the bourgeoisie to lose all
interest in keeping up the parliamentary facade. The direct and open dictatorship of monopoly capital came to be a necessity for the bourgeoisie itself. The
fascist system showed itself to be
the form of government most suited to the needs of monopoly capital. Its economic organization is best able to
offer a solution to the internal contradictions of the bourgeoisie, since its political content allows the bourgeoisie to find a new basis of support, replacing
a reformism which has become less and less able to sustain the illusions of the
masses.
SOCIAL CAUSES
The inability of the bourgeoisie to maintain its political base in reformism derives from the Intensification of class
conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Since the war reformism in
Parallel to this process within the working class there
was a process of radicalization among the different strata of the
petit-bourgeoisie. The peasants were plunged into debt,
reduced to poverty, and in some places,
resorted to terrorist actions. The shop
keepers felt the twin blows of the impoverishment of the masses and of the
competition from the big stores and co-operatives. Intellectuals disorientated by uncertainty
about what tomorrow might bring, students without a future, declassed ex-officers, all began to turn to adventurist ideas. White-collar workers - proletarianized and struck
down by unemployment, redundant functionaries - also showed themselves to be ready to be mobilized by radical
demagogy. A vague and Utopian
anti-capitalism grew up among these
heterogeneous strata dispossessed by the grande bourgeoisie. Their anti-capitalism was reactionary
in that it aimed at a return to a bygone stage of capitalism. Thus
despite their radicalism they became a conservative factor and easily became
the instrument of monopoly capitalism.
In reality, for this radicalized, unconscious petit-bourgeois
mass, incapable of playing an independent role in the economy and faced with
the growing antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, it was a
question of making a choice between one or the
other. It had to choose between monopoly
capital, which was responsible for its desperate situation, and the
revolutionary subject of history, the proletariat. Hatred of the proletarian revolution which would put an end to classes, and the petite-bourgeoisie's attachment to its privileges (privileges which were now
only a memory), threw
the radicalized middle classes into the arms of monopoly capital, thus supplying the latter with a
sufficiently large social base for it to dispense with reformism, now on the verge of
collapse.
POLITICAL ROOTS
The synthesis of these two contradictory aspects of
fascism; dependence on monopoly capital and mobilization of the
petit-bourgeois masses, expressed itself on the political plane in
the development of the National Socialist Party. This party owed its development to a frenzied
demagogy
and to the subsidies of heavy industry.
On the ideological level, this party gave vent to the
despair of the petit-bourgeois masses
via a radical and revolutionary
phraseology, even going as far as to advocate certain forms of expropriation (eg banks. Jews, big
stores); its liaison
with monopoly capital was expressed in its propaganda for class collaboration, for hierarchical
corporative organization, against the class struggle and Marxism.
The inconsistency of the ideological content of Nazi
demagogy is shown clearly in its racist propaganda. The discontent of the masses_was
deflected
against the Treaty of Versailles, capitalism's scapegoat, and against the
Jews who were seen as the
representatives of international capital AND promoters of the class
struggle... This tissue of incoherent stupidities
could only take root in the minds of the petite—bourgeoisie, whose
secondary role in the
economy makes it incapable of understanding anything about the economic facts and
historical events into which it has been thrown.
The
radicalized peasants and petite-bourgeoisie always formed the great mass of the National Socialist Party. It was only when its subordination to
monopoly capital became more clear that the
bourgeoisie itself came to reinforce the cadres of the Nazi Party and supplied
it with officers and leaders. But until Hitler
came to power, the Nazi party found it impossible to make any serious
encroachments into the working class, as witnessed in the elections to
the works councils. The Nazis always had great
difficulty in penetrating the unemployment registration bureaux, (Stempelstelle);
only a few hundred thousand mercenaries could be recruited for the
But if
the working class did not allow itself to be significantly contaminated by
fascist demagogy it was nonetheless incapable of preventing the development of
the National Socialist Party. It did not manage to undo the formation of a, bloc of
reactionary classes. The big workers' parties tried without success to
make use of this or that apparent divergence between monopoly capital and the
National Socialists. Above all, the proletariat did not understand
that the real contradiction was not between democracy and
fascism, but between fascism and the proletarian
revolution. It was thus the lack of the
revolutionary capacity on the part of the proletariat which permitted the political development of fascism
and the rise of Hitler.
To see how this was possible, we must examine in detail
the ideological and tactical content of the main tendencies in the workers'
movement.
THE
TENDENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS OF THE WORKING CLASS
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REFORMISM
Reformism developed within the working class during the
ascendant phase of capitalism. Its roots
lay in the possibility for the bourgeoisie to rapidly develop the productive
apparatus, a growth in production which in general found easy outlets in new
markets. The result of this for the working
class was a rapid development in its numbers and power. The
bourgeoisie needed to assure the increased growth of a docile and satisfied
working class and this could be easily obtained by ceding to the working class
a small part of the ever—growing profits derived from_imperialism. But even
when the Bourgeoisie was no longer able to accord any more
concessions to the working class and actually had to deprive the working
class of all the advantages it had won in a previous epoch, reformism still retained an
important influence in the working class and
was able to play the_role of providing capitalism
with a political base. This vas the case for the trade union and
political organs of reformism, which having developed during the years
of prosperity continued to exist so long as they could fulfill the interests of
capitalism. The principal method of the political organization (social
Democracy) was parliamentarism. Its activities had
the aims of convincing the workers that they must wait peacefully for any
improvement in their
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lot, which would be decided by
parliament in the proper democratic way. Every time Social Democracy took the most
active part in the massacre of the revolutionary workers it
justified its betrayals by presenting itself as the defender of
democracy. The trade union organization orientated itself towards
discussing contract rates with the employers and in the last resort going to
the state for arbitration. It prevented strikes whenever it could and;
in the case of spontaneous strikes, tried to get the workers back to work by
using all kinds of manoeuvres. The innumerable trade union bureaucrats, well
paid and embourgeoisified, ruled over
the workers through their control over various forms of assistance (sick pay,
unemployment benefits, etc). Participation in these institutions and in
the various trade union benefits maintained the docility of the
workers and the power of the bureaucrats, despite their persistent and ever
more cynical betrayals.
Parallel to the development of the trade union
bureaucracy, a special bureaucracy charged with the application of
social legislation -assistance, unemployment benefits, etc - grew up in the
state apparatus. This kind of organism and its functions should be seen
as an_auxillary form of reformism, whose origin lay in the
conduction of parliamentary and trade union reformism - a state
orientated reformism which contributed equally to maintaining order,
obedience and illusions within the working class.
Thus reformism persisted in its organizational form even
though it had lost its economic basis. Reformist ideology survived in the
working class, but gradually it weakened under the pressure of the growing exploitation
and poverty of the proletariat. When the proletariat vas reduced to struggling for its most basic interests, it became clear to the bourgeoisie that it could no longer maintain a practical organizational form for class collaboration on the_basis of reformist ideology. The practical organizational form had to be
maintained at all cost, but the ideologv had to be changed; thus the bourgeoisie resolutely
replaced reformism with
fascism. First of all the trade unions
were integrated purely and simply
into fascism. There could be no question
of resistance on the part of the
bureaucrats because the organizational reality of class collaboration was kept
up; the only thing that was thrown out, like a worn out glove, vas the ideology
of reformism. The replacement of
reformism with fascism thus proceeded very smoothly, and if the bourgeoisie had
no need of any new agents it vas able to retain the services of the old clowns
who asked for nothing more.
These developments proved that the trade unions were of
no use to the working class, and that this vas not the result of bad
leadership but of_the verv_structure
and aims of the trade unions as representative organs of the corporative
interests within capitalism; such organs have thus necessarily become part of
the normal functioning of capitalism and cannot be used for revolutionary ends.
BOLSHEVISM
The
development of the Russian Revolution since October 1917 has been conditioned
by the contradiction between a very concentrated but numerically small
proletariat and an immense backward peasantry. Russian industry was in general very modern technically, but its economic
structure suffered from a number of weaknesses because it had been organized by foreign capital for the
purposes of war or_export. After the downfall of Tsarism
the bourgeoisie was unable to hold onto the
power which had fallen into its hands because it could find no support among
the peasantry who wanted peace and land.
An
audacious and conscious proletariat seized state power in October 1917, but it confronted enormous difficulties of organization in the face
of a backward, already satisfied peasantry twenty times its size. The
collectivization of enterprises was carried forward by the workers at great
speed but attempts at a communist distribution of products came up against the
passive and active resistance of the huge peasant mass. The NEP was a retreat by a proletariat forced
to compromise by the peasantry; but the proletariat still remained master of
the commanding heights of the economy.
However, in this regime of compromise
between collectivized industry and a fragmented agriculture, the_hidden
but real rivalry between the proletariat and the peasantry gave rise to an unheard of development of the state
apparatus, to bureaucratic specialization
and to_the suppression of the power of the Soviets.
The success of the planned economy
accelerated this process of crystallization of a bureaucracy which gradually managed to rule without any controls, over
it, to impose coercive economic measures, both on the proletariat (re—establishment of piece—work and the authority
of management) and on the peasantry (forced concentration of peasant
enterprises), and also measures of political domination (replacement of popular
tribunals with the decisions of the special
political police, the GPU).
A
parallel process took place within the Communist Party, the directing organ, which following a succession of crises,
became the exclusive expression of the class interests of the
bureaucracy. With the disappearance of the
political power of the Workers' Soviets the dictatorship of the
proletariat no longer existed, and had been replaced with the dictatorship of
the bureaucracy as a class in formation.
The
Third International and the Communist Parties in all countries suffered structurally from the repercussions of
this transformation of the Russian regime; with the German party in
particular, bureaucratization and the absence of internal democracy reached an
extreme point. The influence of the working masses could not make itself felt
in the policies of the K.P.D. Its
strategy and tactics were imposed upon it according to the interests of the
Soviet bureaucracy. Up until the NEP,
Soviet foreign policy had been orientated towards the world revolution, despite
errors which for example in the case of Radek, were
to have disastrous consequences on the German Revolution. Today the theory of 'Socialism in one
country' puts all its weight on the construction of the industrial apparatus in
The class interests of the bureaucracy engendered the
theory of the 'leadership party' which is the negation of the possibility of
working class politics independent of other classes in particular the .middle classes,
,and it is therefore at the roots of opportunism. At the same time, the utilization of the world
proletariat for the changing needs of Soviet diplomacy created a growing gulf
between the massed and the K.P.D.
The essential consequence, which crystallizes the whole
activity of the Soviet bureaucracy, has been the degeneration of the class
character of the revolutionary movement.
Instead of spreading class ideology, the K.P.D..
for opportunistic and diplomatic reasons,, promulgated
a nationalist ideology(the slogan of social and national, liberation,
the theory that the German nation was oppressed by imperialism.
The K.P.D. believed that by resorting to this manoeuvre
it
would cause disarray within the petit-bourgeois ranks of National Socialism. In reality it only caused confusion and disarray
among the proletariat; it was able to do nothing to oppose the rise of fascism,
while the coming to power of fascism won over to the ranks National
Socialism militants of the K.P.D. who had been deceived by its own
nationalist slogans.
The incoherence of Bolshevik manoeuvres,
(united fronts now with the fascists, now with the Social Democrats),
bureaucratic pretensions towards establishing a dictatorship over the
masses, the absence of a proletarian ideology -
all this condemned the K.P.D. to impotence. After having gone from ‘success’ to 'success' on the
electoral arena, the K.P.D. found itself completely isolated from the
masses when it did want to act (eg the Nazi
demonstration in front of Liebknecht's house).
However, it is not even possible to know whether it really wanted to
act and to what purpose.
The roots of this incapacity are the same as with
Social Democracy. In both cases they are a result of the penetration of
bureaucratic ideology into the organization - the ideologies of parliamentarism (in the slogan 'to stop Hitler, vote for Thaelmann'); trade unionism (attempts to conquer the
unions) and opportunism which consisted of manoeuvres
between classes and different strata of the working class.
SMALL BOLSHEVIK GROUPINGS
The theory of the 'leadership party' and the practice of parliamentary,trade unionist, and opportunist manoeuvres are also to be found in the various Bolshevik
opposition groups. The K.P.O.(l) (Brandler), the Trotskyists and the S.A.P.(2) have the same basic ideology,
differing only in subtle details which are in any case changing all the time. For_all these groupings, the tactic to be used
against fascism is unity in action between reformism and
Bolshevism. This tactic has not been applied, but the working class can
expect to gain nothing from the unity of treason and impotence.
PERSPECTIVES FOR THE WORKERS' MOVEMENT
THE LESSONS OF REVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCE
Perspectives can only be based on experience -
revolutionary experience which is already rich in lessons. From the Paris Commune to the October
Revolution passing through the Revolution of 1905, experience has
contradicted the tactics and strategy of Bolshevism; it has shown that working
class, in a given objective situation, is
capable of acting independently as a class, and that in these
situations it spontaneously creates organs for the expression end
exercise of its will as a class: workers' councils or Soviets. It is necessary to see how these
organs were born and developed in
The Workers' Councils of 1918 were the direct
descendants of this, movement. The military collapse of
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In the unstable situation of capitalism which lasted
until 1922, the necessity for the workers to have revolutionary
organizations based in production became clear, and
almost everywhere in Germany the factory l organizations grew up, formed
more or less spontaneously against the_ counter-revolutionary trade unions and forming at this point a very important, political current, the revolutionary
efforts of the workers _were ended in 1923 by the brutal action of the Reichswehr, crushing workers already demoralized by the doubly absurd tactic of the Communist
Party, which proposed a united front to the fascists at Reventlow
against French imperialism, and, at
the same time, was participating in the
parliamentary government of Saxony with the Social Democrats.
After 1924, the temporary stabilization of capitalism
and the absence, of
revolutionary perspectives led to the disappearance of radical currents, gave a new lease of life to
reformism supported by the state apparatus and inaugurated the period of
parliamentary "success” for Bolshevism.
This apparent consolidation of reformism and the illusory success of Bolshevism did not prevent, with the
development of the crisis after 1929, the growth of the fascist movement
and the deterioration of the living
standards of the working class, which was suffering increasingly the blows of an unemployment which
seemed to_have no solution. At the same time, the masses showed a certain
distrust of the existing parties, a certain effervescence tending
towards the united front of the class; but
on the whole there was still an attitude of waiting for the big organizations
to act effectively. The coming to power of fascism without any resistance shattered
the illusions of the workers.
TOWARDS THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PROLETARIAT
Thus the pressure of economic conditions led the
bourgeoisie to destroy organizations which had in fact been the only ones able to block
and paralyze any revolutionary movement of
the class. This dialectic of the rise of fascism has led us to see
beyond the unfolding of the terror and the
dispersion of the old workers' movement to the possibilities of progress
and the basis for a new movement. The destruction_of_the old organizations opens
up new perspectives for a new class movement. The proletariat finds itself
unencumbered with the self-proclaimed
proletarian parties which are effectively reactionary, with the
paralyzing illusions of political and trade union reformism and of parliamentarism. The
illusions of Bolshevism have also been shaken; the majority of revolutionary workers no longer believe that its every action
has to be led by a party of professional revolutionaries standing above the working class; they no longer have any
confidence in the Bolshevik methods of bluff and agitation which lead
only to sterile action
The practice of illegal struggle has led the workers to
develop new fonts of political work. The
revolutionary workers in the factories and among the unemployed are forming
small groups which provocateurs are unable to penetrate. The distribution of leaflets full of agitational slogans and of bluff has been replaced by the
elaboration of discussion material and by proletarian political education. The bureaucrats of the Communist Party ere no
longer able to impose their point of view without discussion.
However,
this work of regroupment and self-education is still
proceeding in a sporadic fashion and
without enough political clarity. It is
vital that the greatest possible programmatic clarity is the point of departure
for all political work. The most
conscious revolutionary elements, already grouped together in nuclei formed by
tenacious preparatory work, will assist this process of clarification and regroupment among the groups which have been born out of
the debris of the old organizations, but which are still looking for a new
ideology. These communist workers' nuclei have developed during the period of
deepening crisis. Through these nuclei
the synthesis of the experience of
the illegal struggle of the radical workers in the various revolutionary attempts since 1917 has been realized; and it
has been realized with all the revolutionary ardour
of the young, for whom the development of events has illuminated the necessity
to break with the methods of reformism end Bolshevism. In their ideological clarity they bear the
lessons of the past, and in their will to struggle the hopes of the working
class reside.
During the period preceding the fascist terror,
dominated by reformist and Bolshevik illusions, these nuclei were numerically weak in
relation to the big mass organizations, but
they were steeled in illegal propagandist activity and they were linked
solidly right across
These nuclei, which must be the ideological armament of
the proletariat, will
have to integrate new elements step by step while avoiding the dilution of the
clarity of their principles. Every nucleus must be firm and clear within itself so that hidden contradictions do not surface later on.
In the present phase of capitalism, the tactics of
communists are determined by whether the situation is pre-revolutionary or
revolutionary. In the present pre-revolutionary situation, the task at hand is
the creation of the
foundations of a revolutionary communist party.
The communist nuclei in formation must act on the working class to
accelerate the development of conditions for revolutionary struggle: the
struggle for the clarification of class consciousness, destruction of the old
conservative reformist (or Bolshevik) ideology, comprehension of the necessity
for the class to organize itself in councils and propaganda for revolutionary
methods of struggle. This action within the class can only become effective
through permanent participation in the practice of the proletariat's struggle
to survive on all fronts, because the workers can only really learn through
direct experience.
In a revolutionary situation the goal is the destruction
of bourgeois power by class action, the conquest of the means of production,
the building of the power of the workers' councils on the economic and political
terrain, and the beginning of the socialist reconstruction of society
in general. All these goals can only he
realized during the revolution through the closest possible liaison between
the proletarian class and the revolutionary party, which is only the clearest
and most active part of the class.
The aim of the party's work cannot be to raise itself
above the class like a Bolshevik Central Committee commanding the
revolution from on high. The revolutionary party can only be a lever
in the development of the proletariat's own activity.
The present forces of left communism must be conscious
of the fact that they cannot constitute the revolutionary party, just at
any time, but that the basis of this party can only be formed through
a new task of reconstruction within the revolutionary struggle of the masses;
that while "the revolution cannot triumph without a great revolutionary
party" the inverse is also true - in a situation which is merely 'becoming
revolutionary’
this party cannot anchor itself and develop itself in the
working class as a whole.
The fundamental question for the revolutionary tactic of
a communist nucleus in the class is not how to gather together, as
quickly as possible, the maximum strength behind the organization
to defeat the enemy - all thanks to the superior intelligence of the
organization's leadership. No, the fundamental question is: how, at each stage
of the practical struggle, can the consciousness, organization and capacity for
action of the proletarian class be pushed forward, in such a way that the class
as a whole can, reciprocally with the revolutionary communist
party, carry out its historic task.
The task of revolutionary communist nuclei is therefore
a double one: on the one hand, ideological clarification as the
foundation of the development of the revolutionary party; on the other
hand, the preparation of the bases of the factory organizations through
the gathering together of the revolutionary workers with the most developed
awareness. As capitalist exploitation grows more and more acute it
will force the workers to defend their very existence and to enter into
struggle even in the most difficult conditions. For lack of any other organization, the
workers in struggle will create organs for the direction of the struggle like,
for instance, the action committees. The
role of the factory nuclei will be to participate in these movements, to
clarify then by giving a political content and to work for their extension to the
national and international arena.
To the extent that these
struggles extend, the working class will enter into the struggle for political
power. These organs of struggle, having become
permanent, will take on a special character:
they will become organs for the conquest of power by the
proletariat and finally the sole organs of the proletarian dictatorship. These councils - organs emanating directly
from the factories and the organization of the unemployed, revocable at all
times - will have a double role: the political councils will have to
complete the crushing of the bourgeoisie and the strengthening of the
dictatorship of the proletariat; the economic councils will take charge of the
social transformation of production.
THE PERSPECTIVES OF CAPITALISM
These principles of organization and these perspectives
for the development of the activity of the class are based not only on the
historic experience of the working class, but also on the perspectives of
capitalism.
The perspectives of capitalism are dominated by the
deepening and broadening out of the crisis throughout the world. It is now
clear to everyone that the present crisis is something quite different from
the cyclical crises which used to be part of the normal functioning
of capitalism. It is clear that the current crisis is a crisis of the
system itself, or rather a stage in the decay of capitalism. The attempts
made to surmount the crisis were accompanied at the beginning by
enthusiasm on the part of the bourgeoisie but they fell apart a few months
later - as is the case now with the schemes of
The attempt at a new division of markets leads to violent
international contradictions all over the world. National capitalisms
clash against each other through frenzied customs and monetary policies.
Antagonisms become more and more acute and the points of friction,
the sources of conflict, become more and more widespread. This deterioration of international political
relations reacts in its turn on the economic conditions which have engendered
it in the first place and make these conditions even more insurmountable. The result is that fascism can find no stable economic base. That
is why, to divert the attention of the
masses away from their own growing misery, it stirs up new international difficulties.
Thus the impossibility of capitalism surmounting its
economic difficulties and the sharpening of contradictions on an international
level open the way to fascism in all countries and, at the same time, exclude
the possibility of fascism stabilizing itself.
The solution to this dialectical contradiction can only lie in
the proletarian revolution. However, a solution may be sought by the
bourgeoisie in a new world war if the proletariat does not take the
initiative towards decisive action. But the world war itself is not a solution
and the dilemma which will be remorselessly posed is the one foreseen by
Marx: Communism or Barbarism.
Revolutionary perspectives must therefore be envisaged on
a world scale. The cyclical fluctuations of the conjunctural crisis, taking place within the
framework of the permanent crisis of de-generate capitalism, will lead in the years
to come, to a more brutal and unbearable deterioration of living
standards for the working class.
The necessity for the working class to defend its most
basic interests will inevitably produce the conditions for a new epoch of
struggles on a world scale.
Faced with a world-wide development of fascism, we must
not consider the situation of the German workers as something special,
demanding mainly solidarity actions of a more or less utopian nature. The
fundamental question being posed for the international proletariat
is the following; how best to use the political and organizational lessons
of the German experience so that, in the next epoch of struggle, the
class enemy will find itself confronted with a world proletariat armed
ideologically and organizationally in the best possible way.
The response is clear and flows from what has been said
concerning activity in
These new organizations must establish international
links in order to lay the basis for the formation of the Fourth International
through the same process of the transformation of nuclei into the party which must take
place in the revolutionary conjuncture.
To raise the slogan now for the constitution
of the Fourth International is as inconsequential as demanding the
immediate constitution of a new 'real party of the working class'. In reality, this slogan of the S.A.P. and the Trotskyists can only end up in the provisional
reconstitution of Bolshevism, in a 'Three-and-a-half International' which will
be a shameful appendage of the Third International, and destined to
end in the same fiasco.
The proletariat has other things to do than to set up
historical caricatures. Its task is to defeat the bourgeoisie and realize
communism. It is up to us to
prepare the weapons which will allow it to triumph.
A. Lehmann
Footnotes:
1. K.P.O.: Kommunistiche
Partei Opposition.
2. S.A.P.: Sozialistische
Arbeiterpartei (Socialist Workers Party).