A Discussion with Pierre Rimbert

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Rimbert: The question of the new International affects my joining the [French] League. I am opposed to the slogan for a new party in Germany. The logical conclusion must be drawn from the outset. We can’t stop here with this slogan. The slogan of the Fourth International is wrong: The [Communist] International was dead long before the events in Germany. We knew before those events that the centrist leadership could only bring about an international defeat. The degeneration began in 1924. As early as 1926-27, the Comintern was revealed as no longer the political organization of the proletariat. From an organizational point of view, the Comintern disappeared several years earlier. The sections of the Comintern engaged only in sporadic activity (for example, the Italian party) because they have no living organizational base in the working class in most countries. The debacle therefore was already apparent even to the workers in general (who left the organizations of the Comintern).

There were differences over the question of faction discipline. Some comrades thought we should break discipline and act as an independent faction on the question of the [German] “red referendum,” for example, or on the question of elections. Another current wanted to follow centrist discipline even to the point of absurdity. Now the idea of a Fourth International and new parties comes forward. We, for our part, wish to maintain the position of an independent faction. Is it necessary to build new parties? Only events will decide. There is a deep demoralization in the working class, even among revolutionary activists — this is the source-of the splits in the workers’ movement and in the Left Opposition itself. It is completely premature and bureaucratic to involve ourselves in the creation of new parties and an International during this period of retreat. If we embark on this course of action at the present time, we will score a big success numerically — just as Souvarine has had a certain amount of success. But Souvarine’s success is only quantitative. In the same fashion, the Left Opposition can swell its ranks with a large number of elements disillusioned with the SP, the PUP, and the CP. But these are not the best elements of the revolutionary class. This growth would only be a political disadvantage. The few opposition elements who have acquired revolutionary experience in the party or in the Left Opposition, the only ones capable of having a perspective, would run a strong risk of being submerged by this influx of new and politically uneducated (or even miseducated) people — syndicalists, left Social Democrats, ultraleftists.

Moreover, building an International because there are comrades who are convinced of the necessity for one does not guarantee success. The Communist parties are not corpses, because they are active in the working class, even though this activity is badly oriented and degenerated. Thus we must remain an independent faction of the party and its periphery — not subject to discipline and in opposition to the leadership. Only events will decide in which direction we will go. Of course we cannot straighten out the centrist bureaucrats, but we will be able to win over cells, district and regional organizations. The essential task is not to swell our forces very quickly but to build ourselves up politically, to form new cadres from the youth, many of whom have come to us directly without going through the party, and to put pressure on the Communists to fight the leadership and drive it out of the party.

Trotsky: Since you are fundamentally opposed to our general political orientation, what sense is there in your criticizing the leadership of the League and the ILO? You are behind the times by six or eight months — that is, by an eternity … and yet you give an analysis of the leadership. That proves that you are not consistent. Otherwise, you would have to hope that the League will fall apart. You have a formalist conception of all of our activity, past and future. In contrast, our conception of the faction was completely realistic. For us it was a question of capturing and redirecting the party and the Communist International. You object to our new orientation on the ground that the Communist International has been dead for a long time. This could only be a criticism of the old orientation. Whether the Communist International has been dead for a long time or just for a short time, it is necessary to build a new International.

Now you say that we had illusions about the Comintern. Just because the leadership was centrist, was it excluded in advance that the party might amount to something? You discover a corpse, and in dissecting it, criticize the doctor. We were not farsighted enough to confidently predict the outcome of such an enormous class conflict. Moreover, is it in general possible to weigh a priori all the forces in conflict and the possibilities inherent in the struggle itself? If this had been so, it would have been sufficient to present a reckoning of the relationship of forces. Hitler himself hesitated greatly because he did not know the result or the possible scope of working class resistance in advance. Centrism is not a thing in itself. Under mass pressure, it can involve itself in struggle and, under the imperious pressure of events, even enter into a coalition with us.

Only after the German events were we convinced that the Comintern was completely ossified. Even if we were wrong (and you along with us, Comrade Rimbert), the fact remains that we should correct our “mistake.” The German CP no longer exists as a revolutionary force. You recognize this yourself. What other historical or metaphysical function could it have? Before the catastrophe, we thought that the party would be able to engage a good part of the working class in struggle, starting with the unemployed. It wasn’t even able to mobilize part of its membership. You say that only future events will be able to determine whether a new International will be created. Thus you look to future developments, but pay no attention to things that have just occurred and have already determined the necessity for a new International (whose development will naturally depend on future events). The Comintern still exists, thanks to a certain tradition, a certain disorientation among the workers, and — what is not the least important factor — thanks to its coffers. The Second International was no more dead in the physical sense after 1914 than the Third is today. Nevertheless, it was dead as a progressive force, i.e., as a proletarian revolutionary force. That is what we said in the fall of 1914. Then, too, they treated us like adventurists, saying that only events. … But if we had tail-ended events, then developments like October would not have come about. The role of revolutionaries is to drag developments forward by the hair, “just a little bit.” Waiting for developments is a form of passive fatalism in the manner of Souvarine. But even Souvarine is now trying to build an organization. He will build nothing because he has no theory, no program, no perspective, no concept of strategy, and no ability for political orientation. If there is a movement of elements toward him — something I cannot verify — then it is merely a transitory phenomenon that defines very well the disorientation of the workers. It can only have an episodic character.

You give an abstract and metaphysical definition of the faction and the party, of what is dead and what is “living.” We must say openly to the workers that they can no longer place confidence in the Third International. What is to be done? Wait? Study? No, act. I repeat, it is not up to us to set fixed time schedules, that is, to set the tempo of the new party and the new International. But under present conditions, hesitation is the best way to sow trouble, disorientation, and pessimism.

Only events will decide, you say. This is not a Marxist way of speaking. Only events can set the tempo. But this does not absolve us from the responsibility of starting now to create the new party and the new International in embryo. We must prepare for developments. If we prepare our cadres to revitalize the corpse of the Third International, where will we forge the cadres of the Fourth? Your phraseology about remaining an “independent faction” of a party which is dead yet “living” may seem very wise and very profound in a small circle that uses conventionalized rhetoric, but the workers will not even understand you; whereas everyone will understand our position even if they oppose us.

When we proclaimed the necessity for a new party in Germany, there was, you say, an untenable contradiction in our attitude? Yes and no. It was not a logical contradiction but a practical one. Formerly we were a faction. We said: “Only events will prove whether the Comintern can be reformed. After the collapse of the German CP there still remained a possibility — a very problematic one, it is true — that other sections [of the Comintern] roused by the thunder of the catastrophe would be able to correct their line and declare a new policy (as the French Socialist Party did in 1919). If the Comintern is not dead, it will demand a congress, a discussion that we will be able to intervene in, using Germany.” This was the reprieve that history granted to the Stalinist bureaucracy. But we discovered that, quite the contrary, everything grew worse and collapsed in complete decadence in all countries. So we declared: “The International is finished.” The delay was also necessary for our sections to assimilate the new orientation, and we succeeded in doing this without internal upheavals — which is no small thing.

Rimbert confronts us with the large number of existing groupings. There will be even more if we are confused and indecisive. Our hesitancy would prolong and deepen the confusion.

It seems that we will inherit the “disillusioned,” a very large influx of unschooled workers. But the task of the International is precisely to carry out selection. We will have a mass influx of fresh forces and we will educate them.

Doesn’t the Comintern carry on activity, even if at a very reduced level? But so does the Second International. If the Comintern no longer exists as a progressive factor, how will we be able to have an effect on the far bigger Socialist parties and the trade unions if we remain a faction of the Comintern? While we were active as a faction of the Comintern a left wing formed in the Socialist parties. It is not ripe, but it is a far richer field of recruitment for us than the ossified Comintern. We have already made progress in this direction (the SAP, OSP, RSP, and to a certain extent the ILP, Kilbom, etc.). This shows that these elements, having arrived at communism, did not wish to bend to the bureaucratic exigencies of the Comintern, under the yoke of the Stalinists. We cannot tell them to wait until Comrade Rimbert’s group has determined whether the Third International is dead or still breathing. The Declaration of Four at the Paris conference has at least as much historic importance as Zimmerwald-Kienthal, which was likewise viewed in the workers’ movement as an insignificant adventure.

The most important thing is to tell the workers the truth. This is what we have accomplished. This was what past events demanded. Only future developments will determine the tempo.

Rimbert: In effect, under present conditions, the question of the leadership can no longer be posed. The political differences are too broad for us to reintegrate ourselves into the League. The differences are fundamental. Moreover, it was not at all my intention to assume the leadership first and then to pose the political questions later. We will try to see if we can be won to this position, while making a contribution to day-to-day activity.

On the question of the Fourth International, you once wrote that the construction of a new International would have the revolution in the USSR as its logical consequence.

Trotsky: That was a reply to people like Urbahns, who held that the USSR was not a workers’ state and as a result it was necessary to have a new International. Things are turning out differently than we had expected. We outlined this perspective, which seemed the most likely one to us: “If the USSR falls, it will take the whole Comintern with it.” What we foresaw as decisive was that the fall of the dictatorship in the USSR would take the Comintern with it. But events decided differently: the workers’ state, although degenerated, bureaucratized, and deformed, still exists. But because of the German events, the Comintern has suffered a complete and irreparable collapse. Fortunately the USSR continues to survive. But without the International the USSR is also doomed. In order to save it, a new International is necessary. Contrary to Urbahns, who talks about “state capitalism in the USSR, file United States and Germany,” we say that the workers’ state still exists. If we become an important force, we will offer a united front for the defense of the USSR to the Stalinist bureaucracy. And this action will encourage the Soviet vanguard, aid it in launching a new Bolshevik party in the USSR. From now on, the Bolshevik-Leninist Opposition is the embryo of this new party. After February 1917, when we extolled the necessity of a new revolution, many activists among the Mensheviks and even among the Bolsheviks objected that this was adventurism because the workers in the West were not moving. Lenin said: “We can make the revolution in Russia. We must act here and pull along in our wake the Western proletariat, which, moreover, is beginning to move behind Liebknecht.”Now the situation is reversed. The vanguard has much better opportunities to move in the capitalist world, while our comrades in the USSR are being wiped out by the Stalinist repression.

We had a formula that served us for ten years: a faction and reform. The greatest danger that a revolutionary organization faces is in allowing itself to become hypnotized by its own formulas. The world situation has changed since the German catastrophe. Not only the Weimar republic but also the two Internationals have crumbled to dust. The vanguard of the vanguard needs a clear orientation and long endurance. Equivocation is impermissible. The answer is a new International.