CONTINUING ITS debate on the situation of world politics today Socialist Action is reprinting This document, adopted by the Trotskyist Fourth International in 1963, represents probably the most important Marxist overall features of world political development since the origin of the workers' movement.
Whether one agrees with the Fourth therefore, it remains an indispensable element in any discussion. Articles Socialist Action printed on this discussion include 'How Reagan will be defeated' (SA 78) and 'Lin Piao Lives!' (SA 82).
THE CLASSICAL schema of world revolution assumed that the victory of socialism would occur first in the industrially developed tries, setting an example for the less developed.
It is true that after the revolution of 1848, Marx voiced some misgivings about one of the political assump. tions underlying this schema; namely, the capacity of the bourgeoisie classical democratic revolution were capitalisin Is sull Immature bur where a modern proletariat already exists.
Later Engels further undermined this schema when he pointed out that the relative weakness of political consciousness among the British working class was due precisely to the fact that was the capitalist country, holding a world monopoly on high productivity.
first victorious way which the established tight control.
instrument all mallocuvic 1n Kremlin thereby unintentionally, or not has bourgeoiscountries advanced today revolution backward Russia and thereby paving the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet state and ine Communist miernauondi, over stalinist bureaucracy The Comintern became transtormed trom an instrument of world revolution into diplomatic the hands of the blocking, first then with calculated purpose, the victory of the proletarian revolution in many promising situations in many countries.
ICCU ing At the end of World War II, social stalinist collaborationist policies, in combination with the efforts of western im- ship.
perialism, led to the stablilisation of a capitalist economy and a bourgeois state in several imperialist countries where the victory of socialism was objectively possible and even imminent.
As a result of the successive failure of the two major revolutionary waves of 1919-23 and 1943-48 — and of the minor one of 1934-37 — the main centre of world revolution shifted for a The vicRevolution 1949, following the post-war revoluopened an sene of colonial revolutions. All the victorious revolu1917, including the of workers' states through revolutionary upheavals in China, Vietnam.
Cuba thus took place in relatively of countries willie the possibility of early revolutionary victory in the imperialist countries was The view must be vigorously rejected that this development, unforeseen in the classics of Marxism, was more or less fatally determined by the objective factors or by lack of revolutionary energy or will among the workers in the imperialist countries. No one can seriously deny that since 1917 various mass upsurges and even uprisings of the working class made the overthrow of capitalism objectively possible in many imperialist countries (Germany and the whole of Central Europe 1919-20, Italy 1919-21. Germany 1923, Belgium, 1932-36 France 1935-37, Italy 1943-48, France 1944-40, 1945-50, etc). can it reasonably be denied that in innumerable tions of factories, general strikes mass demonstra- varuna tions that have toppled governments, and even insurrections threatening the foundations of bourgeois power, that the proletariat of the imperialist countries (excepting United States) has shown again and again its understanding of the general ICCOLISLIUCI society socialist lines and its willingness to carry out the task.
Germany The failure of all these attempts is not due to any innate incapacity, to any political "backwardness' 'corruption', but to the treacherous role of the official leadership which has repeatedly preferred not to utilise the objective possibility of taking power, or to deliberately destroy that possibility. The European proletariat has been hit harder by such betrayals than any other sector of the world working class, as is clearly shown in the cases of Germany and Spain.
The crisis of revolutionary leadership exists, of course, in the colonial and semi-colonial countries as well as the advanced countries. defeated or aborted revolutions bear witness to this crisis from the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27 to the more recent defeats. But in possible outcome of the struggle, a big difference is evident between inadequate leadership in a backward country and similar leadership in an imperialist country: the enemy facing the workpopulation immeasurably stronger in the latter.
Confronted with the powerful and well-experienced bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries, the class can achieve victory only under a genuine revolutionary Marxist leaderThe situation is different in the backward countries. Confronted by ruling classes, rotten to the core and lacking mass support, the revolution draws into struggle the mass of the working population, including the peasants pauperised petty-bourgeoisie, bringing about collapse of the traditional order and its state, and exerting such pressure on centrist working-class parties similar formations as to bring them to power.
The failure of a revolutionary wave in an imperialist country gives way eventually to some form of temporary relative economic stabilisation and even to fresh expansion. This inevitably postpones new revolutionary uprisings for a time, the combination setback (or demoralisation) of the working class and a rising standard of living being Davorale TOr ally immediate revolutionary undertaking.
Nol state countries, on the other hand, the very weakness of peculiar socio-economic produced by imperialism, the permaalong nent misery of the big majority of the population in the absence of radical agrarian revolution, and even reduction of living standards while industrialisation proceeds relatively situations in which the failure of one revolutionary or lo automatically to relative or even temporary social or economic stabilisa. tion. cession of mass struggles continues, such as Bolivia has experienced for Many working Contributors include:
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London I1 In the colonial and semicolonial capitalism, the whole the stagnation scale nevertheless rapidly, wave does not lead A seemingly inexhaustible suc- overcont A Socialist Action pamphlet on the future of Europe Ernest Mandel on the reunification of Germany, Gunter Minnerup on the East European peace movements, Oliver Macdonald on the Labour Party defence document. and John Ross on social dislocation in Europe Available from Socialist Action. PO Box 50. ten years. The weakness of the enemy offers the revolution fuller means of recovery from temporary defeats than is the case in the imperialist countries To sum up victories and defeats since 1917 express the relationship of forces between the old ruling and the toiling masses : on a The fact that the revolution won first in backward countries and not in the advanced is not proof that the workers in the advanced countries have shown insufficient revolutionar combativity. It is evidence of the fact that the opposition which they have to 1s Im measureably stronger than in the col onial and semi-colonial world.
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a major section from Dynamics of World Revolution Today.
attempt in the post-war world to draw together an analysis of the