Letter to Fritz Sternberg, September 4, 1933

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After Talks with Fritz Sternberg

Dear Comrade Sternberg:

I would like to quickly summarize in outline form the results of our rather comprehensive discussions.

1. The most important result is the beginning of work on the programmatic manifesto of the Fourth International. I will send your draft, which I consider to be very important, to all those comrades who can take part in working out the economic portion of the program.

2. I wish to remind you of your promise to send a second draft on the reasons for the defeat of the SPD and the KPD very soon.

3. As far as our real or seeming theoretical differences of opinion are concerned, I am happy to say the following:

a. I consider the sharp contrast you draw between rising and declining capitalism seen from the point of view of real wages to be extremely important and in general unassailable. The sharp emphasis placed on this contrast in the program seems politically appropriate.

b. The theory of accumulation does not at all enter into consideration in this connection.

c. In my opinion the role of the labor aristocracy and the labor bureaucracy is not lessened by the rising curve of real wages in prewar capitalism, rather its social roots go deeper. I think your polemic against Lenin on this question is one-sided, but I am sure that we will arrive at a mutually acceptable theoretical formulation for the program without great difficulty.

d. I freely admit that the concept imperialism, like the concept monopoly capitalism, is used in various different ways in modem Marxist literature. From the standpoint of the program, terminological preciseness in this question is of great importance. I believe that even if a scientific work can allow itself the luxury of presenting its own particular terminology in order to develop its ideas in sharper contrast, a program must — with all necessary precision — depart as little as possible from common usage since it is a question of the impression made on the masses. But this question will hardly present any serious difficulties.

4. I hope that your friends will apply themselves to working out the program as diligently as you have. We have to wait for suggestions from Comrade Walcher primarily for the section on trade unions (but, of course, not just on this section). Naturally the same is true for the comrades of the Left Opposition, SAP, RSP, and OSP who are familiar with this area of work.

5. The second most important result of our discussions can be formulated as follows: we must not lose another moment, that is, we must take the Declaration of Four as the point of departure for large-scale political actions. As I have expressed it verbally, the Declaration of Four, despite its modest appearance, is in no way less important than the Zimmerwald and Kienthal documents. Viewed from within, the Zimmerwald and Kienthal documents also appeared extremely modest. Bolshevism then had ten years behind it as a faction and two years as an independent party, and in terms of numbers and cadres, during the war it was hardly stronger than the Left Opposition of the Soviet Union. The majority of the other participants stood on about the same level of confusion as the majority of the participants in the Paris conference. Numerically, however, they were far weaker. As far as the left wing was concerned, it was incomparably weaker than our Bloc of Four. We don’t have Lenin with us, it is true, but we have had a great deal of experience since Zimmerwald — and that counts for much.

6. It is very important to win over the Swedish party, the ILP, etc. Every effort must be made to do this. It would, however, be fatal to delay our — the Bloc of Four’s — advance until the others have been won over. We would win no one over through such a course of action, rather we would lose each other. The vacillators will come over to us when they are convinced that we ourselves are not vacillating, i.e., when they are convinced of the great mission that the march of events has assigned to us.

7. A good German-langage weekly would be a weapon of incomparable effectiveness under the present circumstances. We could establish one through cooperative effort.

I am sending a copy of this letter to our IS and to the Dutch comrades.

With best regards,

Yours,

L.T.