We Should Join the Belgian Young Socialists

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Dear Comrades:

I have just read two documents: the undelivered speech by W. Dauge (to the POB convention) and the JGS report for the 1934 national convention. Reading them was a revelation and a great moral satisfaction for me. I warmly congratulate Comrade Dauge both for his speech and for his contributions to the JGS report. There are a few secondary questions in the above-mentioned documents with which I cannot associate myself. We have no need, for example, to create a “mystique” around the [de Man] plan. The working class has no need at all of a “mystique” but rather of full awareness and a strong will. We can freely cede all mystique to de Man as his indisputable property. In this case, however, I am sure it’s only a matter of an unfortunate choice of words. I by no means suspect Comrade Dauge of being an idealist or a mystic. More important is a nuance of idealization of the plan and its author. The report goes right up to the point of defending de Man’s deliberately ambiguous and politically pernicious formulation on “national solidarity.” I also find that we use the terms “fascism,” “fascist,” etc., too loosely, without distinguishing between fascism and Bonapartism. This distinction is extremely important in the current situation in Belgium. Having made those reservations, I state all the more willingly that the speech is excellent and that the spirit permeating the JGS report is revolutionary, encouraging, and refreshing.

De Man’s plan is an equivocation. But the JGS poses the problem of the plan in a truly revolutionary way. The Bolshevik-Leninists must take up the most active and decisive participation in the JGS’s campaign for the plan without sharing the illusions certain comrades, even JGS leaders, have about the plan. But criticism of the plan will be progressive only to the extent that our comrades base themselves on the campaign for the plan; that is, for the conquest of power as the only way of carrying out the plan by transforming it.

The fact that we cannot only join the JGS but can give speeches like Dauge’s shows that our Mends should immediately join the JGS. I must admit, dear comrades, that after reading the two above-mentioned documents, I simply cannot understand how Marxists, Bolsheviks, can hesitate for one minute on the question of entry. This shows a high degree of political petrification. Doctrinaire intransigence is an essential trait of Bolshevism, but it makes up only 10 percent of its historic content; the other 90 percent is applying principles to the real movement; it’s participating in the mass organizations, above all the youth, who ask only for our support. Beyond that, allow me to advise our young Bolshevik-Leninist comrades to join the JGS not only to enlighten and educate them, but also to enlighten and educate themselves. The JGS report and above all the contributions of Godefroid and Dauge show me that our friends have a lot to learn in this excellent milieu. Too much time has been lost. There is not a minute more to lose.