Written: 26 March 1936.
Source: New Militant, Vol. II No. 18, 9 May 1935, p. 2.
Transcription/Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive (5 May 2018).
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2018. Creative Commons (Share & Attribute).
To pretend that Herriot-Daladier are capable of proclaiming war against the “200 families” that rule France is to dupe the people shamelessly. The 200 families do not hang suspended in mid-air but are the crown of the system of finance-capital. To cope with the 200 families it is necessary to overthrow the economic and political regime, in the maintenance of which Herriot and Daladier are just as interested as Flandin and de la Rocque. The issue here is not a struggle of the “nation”against a handful of magnates as l’Humanité pictures it but the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. It is a question of the class struggle which can be resolved only be revolution. The strikebreaking conspiracy of the People’s Front has become the chief obstacle on this road.
It is impossible to say in advance how much longer the semi-parliamentary, semi-Bonapartist ministries will continue to succeed one another in France and in general through what concrete stages the country will pass in the next period. This depends upon the world and national economic conjuncture, upon the degree of strategy of Italian and German fascism, upon the course of events in Spain, and last – but not least in importance – upon the awareness and the activity of the advanced elements of the French proletariat. The denouément can be brought closer by the convulsions of the franc. A closer collaboration between France and England can postpone it. In any case the death-throes of “democracy” may drag out for a much longer period than the duration in Germany of the pre-fascist period of Bruener-Papen-Schleicher; but this does not stop it from being the death-throes. Democracy will be swept away. The only question is: by whom?
The struggle against the ‘‘200 families”, against fascism and war, for peace, bread and liberty, and other beautiful things is either a lie, or the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism. The toilers of France are faced with the problem of the revolutionary conquest of power not as a distant goal but as the task of the unfolding period. Meanwhile, the socialist and communist leaders not only renounce the revolutionary mobilization of the proletariat, but resist it with all their strength. Fraternizing with the bourgeoisie, they hound and expel the Bolsheviks. So greatly do they hate the revolution and dread it! Under these conditions, the worst role is played by those pseudo-revolutionists of the type of Marceau Pivert who promise to overthrow the bourgeoisie, but only with the permission of Leon Blum! The entire course of the French labor movement for the last twelve years has placed the task of creating a new revolutionary party on the order of the day.
The question whether events will allow “sufficient” time for its formation is to engage in the most fruitless of all occupations. History has absolutely inexhaustible resources in the domain of different variants, historical forms, stages, accelerations, and retardations. Under the influence of economic difficulties fascism may venture prematurely and suffer a defeat. This would imply a long respite. Contrariwise, it may occupy a temporizing position too long and thereby increase the chances in favor of the revolutionary organizations. The People’s Front may go to smash against its own contradictions before fascism is able to engage in a general battle: this would signify a period of regroupments and splits in the parties of the working class, and a rapid fusion of the revolutionary vanguard. Spontaneous mass movements as in Toulon and Brest may attain a wide sweep and create a reliable fulcrum for the revolutionary lever. Finally, even the victory of fascism in France, which is theoretically not excluded does not mean that it will reign for 1,000 years as Hitler prophesies, or that it is even assured to endure as long as Mussolini has been able to maintain himself. Beginning with Italy or Germany, the twilight of fascism would quickly spread into France as well. To build a revolutionary party in this, the least favorable variant, is to bring nearer the hour of vengeance. The wiseacres who shy away from the unpostponable task with the words, “the conditions are not mature” merely reveal that they themselves have not matured for the conditions.
The Marxists of France, as well as those of the entire world, must, in a certain sense, begin at the beginning, but on an infinitely higher historical level than their predecessors. Progress is at first rendered extremely difficult by the fall of the Communist International, more infamous than the fall of the social democracy in 1914. The new cadres are being recruited slowly, in a cruel struggle against the united front against the reactionary and patriotic bureaucracy in the working class. On the other hand, these very difficulties, which did not descend upon the proletariat accidentally, constitute an important condition for the correct selection and the firm tempering of the first detachments of the new party and the new International.
Only a very tiny section of the cadres of the Comintern began its revolutionary education from the outset of the war, prior to the October revolution. Almost all these elements, without a single exception, are now outside the Communist International. The next oldest stratum joined the already victorious October Revolution. This was much easier. But only an insignificant portion has remained even of this second draft. The overwhelming majority of the present cadres of the Comintern adhered not to the Bolshevik program, not to the revolutionary banner, but to the Soviet bureaucracy. These are not fighters but docile functionaries, adjutants, errand boys. It is by reason of this that the Third International is putrefying so infamously amid the historical situation so rich in great revolutionary possibilities.
The Fourth International rises on the shoulders of its three predecessors. It is subjected to blows from the front, the sides and the rear. Careerists, cowards, Philistines have nothing to seek in our ranks. The percentage of sectarians and adventurists, inevitable at the beginning, is winnowed away as the movement grows. Let pedants and sceptics shrug their shoulders about “small” organizations that issue “small” papers and fling a challenge to the entire world. Serious revolutionists will pass contemptuously by the pedants and sceptics. The October Revolution also once began with its swaddling clothes ...
The mighty Russian parties of Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who made up the “People’s Front” with the Cadets, crumbled into dust, in the course of a few months, under the blows of a “handful of fanatics” of Bolshevism. Subsequently the German social democracy, the German Communist party and the Austrian social democracy died an ignoble death under the blows of fascism. The epoch which is drawing close for the European peoples will sweep out of the working class without leaving a trace all that is equivocal and rotten. All the Jouhaux’s. Citrines, Blums, Cachins, Vanderveldes and Caballeros are only phantoms. The sections of the 2nd and 3rd Internationals will in- gloriously leave the stage one after another. A new regroupment in the workers’ ranks in inevitable. Young revolutionary cadres will gain flesh and blood. Victory is conceivable only on the basis of the methods of Bolshevism, to the defense of which this volume is dedicated.
March 26, 1936
Last updated on: 4 May 2018