The central idea in our analysis of the world situation is that there has been a change in the overall class relationship of forces after 1975 to the detriment of imperialism. This change is the result of the defeat the imperialists suffered in In do china and of the outbreak of the first generalized recession of the international capitalist economy since World War II. The worsening of the world situation for the imperialists at this point does not come from a decline in their military power. Militarily, they are stronger than ever. It is the consequence primarily of the impact of the Indochina war on the internal political situation in the United States, of the relative decline of American dominance over the capitalist world as a whole, and of the grave crisis of leadership for the impe rialists that flows from these develop ments. Even the long phase of depression that the capitalist economy is going through has contributed only indirectly to the worsening of the imperialists' situation. This immediate deterioration has led to a situation without parallel in decades, if not since the beginning of the imperial ist epoch. For the last four years, the capitalist system has lacked any world policeman or policemen capable of sending in large forces to block the advances of the revolution.
The dictatorship of the shah, keystone of the whole imperialist system in the Middle East, and the Somoza dictatorship, key stone of the counterrevolution in Central America, have both fallen without the imperialists being able to intervene militarily on a large scale to rescue their most valuable allies. The fall of these dictator ships involves, in turn, a new deterioration in the strategic relationship of forces for imperialism in these two are as of the world.
But it is one thing to register this weakening of the capitalist system and to note the gravity of the crisis that is shaking this system and the opportunities this development offers for new advances of the world revolution. It is something else again to estimate correctly the resources the imperialists still have at their disposal to try to recoup the situation. In saying that the immediate cause of the relative paralysis suffered by the impe rialists over these last four years is political and not military or financial, we are recognizing that imperialism .still has enormous power and reserves that provide the capacity for counterattack. Therefore this paralysis will be only temporary. It would be a serious mistake to think that there is going to be a second Iran in the Middle East or Far East, or that a second workers state is going to emerge in Latin America without a strong response by the imperialists, including a large-scale military effort.
The political obstacles to such intervention are serious. But they are not insurmountable in the short term. To think otherwise would mean forgetting that, except in a revolutionary situation—which does not exist today in any of the main imperialist countries—the prevailing ideology remains that of the ruling class. When this class really wants to, when it is ready to pay the price, when it has reached a consensus in its own ranks, it can to some extent turn around the opposition to foreign adventures among a majority of the population.
In fact, the imperialists have already begun to prepare such a counterattack. The American army is in the process of building up a special intervention force of 110,000 to 150,000 men, designed particularly for action in the Middle East. This is in addition to the Marine corps, which is being strengthened, the air borne division, and the powerful naval fleets that the U.S. imperialists have stationed in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific.
The assassination of the dictator Park was followed immediately with a show of force by the Seventh Fleet off Korea. The Penta gon reacted to the fall of Somoza by setting up a base and a special strike force to cover the Caribbean and all of Central America. The American, British, and French imperialists are also preparing to cover their major bastions in Africa— Egypt, Morocco, Zaire, Ken ya, and above all, Nigeria and South Africa.
Behind the smokescreen of the SALT II accords, Washington has once again stepped up the nuclear arms race. And it has launched a scare campaign about some military advance that the Soviet Union is supposedly going to make in the mid-1980s. This new phase of nuclear arming includes Western Europe in the framework of NATO. The new MX and Cruise missiles, the intermediate-range Pershing missiles, as well as the neutron bomb, are only the first elements of this new phase. Moreover, major forces in Western Europe are waiting for the least sign of hesitation on the part of U.S. imperialism or for any new defeats for Washington, to jump head over heels into a new, qualitatively higher stage of inde pendently rearming imperialist Europe. The enormous potential of capitalist indus try in Europe, which is technologically the most advanced in the world, would enable them to make up for any lag in a relatively short time, including in the field of mis siles and nuclear arms.
Of course, the Soviet armed forces have made parallel advances, which are dangerous for the imperialists particularly in the naval and air-naval field. But the fundamental conservatism of the Soviet bureaucracy, its fear of world revolution, and its attachment to the status quo—which it is prepared to upset only when the risks are minimal, as in the Horn of Africa—make it very unlikely that Moscow will make any real use of its increased power to counter the counterrevolutionary interventions of the imperialists. Soviet forces serve much more as chess pieces in a political game than for real actions in "localized" con flicts.
The real historical dimensions of the deterioration in the relationship of forces for the imperialists can be defined not in terms of prolonged paralysis or military weakening, but in terms of the political and social price that they will have to pay for every new large-scale counterrevolutionary intervention anywhere in the world. This price will be enormous, out of all proportion to the price they paid for their counterrevolutionary intervention in Indochina.
Any massive military intervention against the revolution in Central America will touch off real anti-imperialist ex plo sions throughout the continent of Latin America. A massive military intervention in the Middle East would risk igniting a good part of the Arab world. The antiwar reactions in the United States itself would be much stronger than they were during the war in Indochina. The Black, Chi ca no, and Puerto Rican national minorities would be particularly affected in the event of an intervention in Africa or in Latin America.
Such reactions would be Bt Hl more powerful in the event of a massive military intervention against a real proletarian revolution in one or more countries in Western Europe. This sort of intervention is in fact scarcely conceivable for that very reason. The dissensions within the imperialist alliance, and the spread of anti-imperialist and anticapitalist sentiment, as well as the development of anti-imperialist and anticapitalist mass actions in Europe and Japan, would probably be still more powerful than the extension of the antiwar movement in the United States.
The situation would change fundamentally only if the proletariat and the anti-imperialist mass movement suffered crush ing defeats in a series of key countries comparable to those they suffered in the 1930s and at the end of the 1940s. If that happened, moreover, the way would be opened up for World War III. The gravity of the crisis of the capitalist system re quires "solutions" commensurate with this crisis. But the relationship of forces be tween the classes in the key countries makes such defeats extremely unlikely in the short- and medium-term. The most probable variant therefore is a continuation of "localized" imperialist counter at tacks, for which the imperialists will have to pay a constantly higher political and social price. The political crisis of capital ism will be a prolonged one.
II.
Examining the economic conjuncture leads to a similar conclusion. The depression will be long. It will probably last through the 1980s, after having lasted through most of the 1970s.
Of course, the perspective is not for a linear development of the depression nor even long-term stagnation, or absolute decline in the production of goods. Phases of recovery will follow phases of outright recession, with notable differences in the breadth and duration of these phases in the various imperialist countries, in the various semi-industrialized semicolonial countries, and in the various sectors of the more backward semicolonial world. However, inflation, structural unemploy ment, and chronic crises of entire indus tries will continue to afflict the international capitalist economy as a whole. It will not regain the optimistic expansionist mood of the 1950s and 1960s. The threat of a collapse of the international monetary system and of the entire inflationary credit system that under lies it would loom clearer and clearer. At the same time, the poverty of the so-called Third World countries—in which, according to a recent report of the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations], a billion human beings suffer severe malnutrition—and the <extremely mediocre economic performance of the bureaucratized workers states will limit the "alternative markets" for international capital much more than during and after the generalized recession of 1974-75. China's re entry into the world market is proving a much more modest affair than the initial expectations of the imperialist circles. More than ever, the only "alter na tive market" that is constantly expanding at a rapid rate will be the arms market, which itself has been one of the main sources of the permanent inflation for forty years.
The essential cause for the duration of the depression lies in the fact that it cannot rapidly play the role that cyclical crises of overproduction must objectively play in the world of capitalist production— that is, create the conditions for a substantial rise in the average rate of profit based on a major increase in the rate of surplus value, and a no less important devaluation of capital. The main obstacle that stands in the way is the intact power of the labor movement, and the increased power of the proletariat. It is the combination of a grave economic depression with the in creased power of the proletariat and with the weakening of the world imperialist system—contrary to what happened aftev 1929, at least in most of the imperialist countries—that is creating an unprecedentedly grave overall social crisis for the capitalists.
To be sure, the international bourgeoisie responded to the generalized recession of 1974-75 by unleashing an austerity offensive in virtually all the capitalist countries. To be sure, in the semicolonial countries— where the extent of unemployment, gallop ing inflation, and dictatorial regimes cut down the ability of the working class to counterattack—real wages suffered cruel cuts as a result of these offensives. This was the case notably in India, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines, Chile, and Peru, to cite only a few of the more significant examples. To be sure, a section of international capitalist industry is re or ienting toward the semi-industrialized semicolonial countries in order to take ad vantage of the social conditions prevailing there that are more favorable to a rapid accumulation of capital. The bourgeoisies of other semicolonial countries are desperately trying to attract such investments, notably by creating "free zones" where the working conditions and wages are worse. To this end, brutal attacks have been launched against the workers in countries as far apart as Sri Lanka and El Salvador. However, the bulk of industrial capital, which produces the greater part of surplus value in the world, continues to be invested in the imperialist countries. In these coun tries the gains achieved by the bourgeois austerity offensive have been extremely modest, if not already wiped out by the workers counterattacks. The resistance the workers have put up has proved much more tenacious than was expected by the bosses, the governments that defend their interests, and the SP and CP bureaucra cies that capitulate to these capitalists. This resistance has been mainly on the trade-union level. But its political reverber ations will soon be felt.
Likewise, the fear of a violent reaction by the workers to a new qualitative jump in unemployment has, up to now, pre vent ed the imperialist bourgeoisie from sacrificing a number of big companies on the brink of bankruptcy, while bankrupt cies of small and middle-sized companies are steadily mounting. State subsidies of ail sorts are keeping these bankrupt mo no po lies afloat.
This is why the economic depression will also be prolonged. It can lead to a favorable outcome for big capital—this cannot be excluded in principle; Lenin warned us "there are no hopeless situations for capitalism"—only if there is a grave defeat of the working class in a series of key capitalist countries.
Under such conditions, there is not much point in getting involved in long discus sions about the exact chronology, geographical spread, and duration of every one of the recessions that are going to follow one another throughout this long depression. Predictions about this would inevitably include unknown factors that therefore would be highly speculative. Has a recession already begun in the United States in 1979? We think it has, but that has not been completely proven. Will it spread to the rest of the imperialist countries (and most of the semicolonial countries) in 1980? We think so, but in the case of Germany and Japan, this is still subject to doubt.
Rather than concentrate our analytical work on such short-term predictions, we should clarify the nature of the period. Here, doubt is no longer possible. Since the end of the 1960s, the long postwar boom has faded. A long depression began, des tined to continue through the 1970s and 1980s. It is dealing a mortal blow to reformist and neo reformist illusions. The capitalist system is clearly capable of neither assuring full employment nor a steady growth in the real incomes of workers in the imperialist countries. (In the underdeveloped countries these illu sions had hardly any credibility even during the "boom.") It is the task of revolutionary Marxists to lead the working class to draw the necessary political conclusion from this. The capitalist system must be overthrown. The working class must take power. There is no other way to eliminate the double curse of unemploy ment and inflation.
III.
Already, at the two preceding world congresses, we pointed up another new feature of the world situation—the end of the long period of relative stabilization of capitalism in Western Europe. Since 1968, proletarian revolution—that is, prerevolutionary and revolutionary crises—has once again been on the agenda not only in a historical sense, but in a much more immediate one, at least in the four countries of southwestern Europe. May 1968 in France, the Italian "creeping May" in 1969, the
Portuguese revolution in 1974-75, the prerevolutionary crisis in Spain in the first half of 1976, and the explosive new upsurge of workers struggles and of the political crisis in Italy in the same period have confirmed this prognosis. In some other countries in capitalist Europe, especially Britain, in creasing political polarization, sharpening class conflicts, the power of the workers movement, and the bourgeoisie's more and more pressing economic need to confront the workers are opening up a period of social and political instability much more pronounced than in the past, even though this does not yet amount to prerevolutionary crises.
At various times—November 1975 in Portugal, the second half of 1976 in Spain, September 1977 to March 1978 in France and Italy—the initiative has passed from the hands of the proletariat to those of the bourgeoisie. The reasons for this turnabout will be discussed under the special point on the congress agenda dealing with class struggles in capitalist Europe. What should be stressed here is that these were conjuncture! shifts and not a change in the period. In none of the countries men tioned above, nor in several others that could be mentioned, has bourgeois society regained the relative stability that charac terized it roughly between 1953 and 1968. Nowhere has the increased power and combativity of the proletariat been seriously eroded. Nowhere have the relation ships of forces been changed by major defeats for the working class. Nowhere are the capitalists safe from sudden turns in the situation that could create new revolutionary crises.
However, the growing weight of the proletariat in the real process of world revolution is by no means the simple result of the fact that the revolution is once again knocking at the door of the imperialist mother countries, where the working class has its heavy battalions. This is a universal phenomenon, which we see both in the imperialist and semicolonial countries, as well as in the bureaucratized workers states.
This increased weight of the proletariat in the unfolding of the revolutionary pro cess has both an objective and a subjective cause. The objective cause is the growth in the numerical and economic strength of the proletariat, that is, wage labor, with respect to the total economically active population. This phenomenon can be ob served in all three sectors of the world revolution. The subjective cause is the real, although uneven, loosening of the control over the working class that has been exercised for several decades by the SPs, CPs, union bureaucracies, and nationalist-populist apparatuses, notably as a result of the demoralizing effects on the level of class consciousness of a long period of defeats of the revolution.
The following figures are indicative: Industrial Wage Workers as Percentage of Total Economically Active
Imperialist Countries
Italy 40% 47% Spain 31% 42% France 39% 41% Japan 30% 37% Portugal 29% 36% Semi-industrialized Semicolonial Crountrli Hong Kong 52% 57% South Korea 9% 33% Singapore 23% 32% Taiwan 11% 27% Egypt 12% 26% Mexico 20% 25% Brazil 15% 20% Bureaucratized Workers States Rumania 20% 31% North Korea 23% 32% Yugoslavia 23% 34% Bulgaria 25% 38% USSR 29% 46% Czechoslovakia 46% 49% East Germany 48% 51% Hungary 35% 58% If you add die wage workers in the service sector to those in industry for the imperialist countries as a whole, the proletariat makes up more than 75 percent of the economically active population, reach ing peaks of over 90 percent in the United States, Britain, and Sweden. In the semi-industrialized, semicolonial countries, this percentage reaches or exceeds 50 percent in most of the countries mentioned above, as well as in Argentina, where the indus trial proletariat, properly speaking, has shrunk. The change that has taken place is much more striking still if you take 1950 or 1953 as the point of departure rather than 1960.
In the case of those semicolonial coun tries that remain essentially agricultural, accelerated capitalist penetration of the countryside has, in some important in st an ces, brought about the rapid growth of a rural proletariat consisting of landless agricultural workers who often have only seasonal employment. Such workers today comprise 40 percent of the so-called pea sant population in India. If you add to these the wage workers in industry and the services, you find that the proletarianized masses make up 45 percent of the economically active population in India, which is out of all proportion to the percentage in Russia in 1917, in China in 1949, to say nothing of Vietnam in 1945 and 1953. This objective fact is sufficient to ex plain why the long detour of the world revolution after World Wax II is coming to an end. Specifically proletarian forms of struggle—mass political strikes, general strikes, urban insurrections—and specifically proletarian forms of organization— committees of all sorts leading up to coun cils of delegates, that is, embryonic Soviets or Soviets at various stages of maturity-are beginning to predominate in all three sectors of the world revolution. The Iran ian and Nicaraguan revolutions have confirmed the correctness of this analysis. The spectacular rise of workers struggles in Brazil is undoubtedly the most important expression of this tendency historically. If this World Congress puts a special stress on continuing and extending the course of proletarianizing the international, which we have been involved in for several years, it is not only for reasons of principle that are always valid—namely, that the social composition of our move ment should correspond to its fundamental objective, which is to build a new revolutionary leadership of the proletariat. A rapid growth, like the one we experienced after 1968 in the youth movement, there fore inevitably calls for adjustments. It is above all because of the proletariat's overwhelming weight in the real process of the world revolution; because of the rise in workers struggles, albeit primarily defensive ones, against the crisis and the austerity offensive of the capitalists, which are giving rise and will give rise to a new generation of militants and radicalized working-class leaders in the plants and trade unions; and because it is vital for our international to influence them and win them to our program. We can only do this successfully if we are solidly rooted in the big plants themselves, regardless of the time required for this effort, which is in any case a long-term one.
The building of mass revolutionary par ties and a mass revolutionary international will essentially be the result of a fusion of our nucleus—reinforced by revolutionary regroupment operations—with this new proletarian vanguard, as it will be the product of fusion with currents moving toward our program and toward a break with the traditional bureaucratic apparatuses within the mass parties of the workers movement and within the anti-imperialist movement.
IV.
The current problems of the class struggle in capitalist Europe and Latin America will be dealt with under special points on the agenda of this Congress. Therefore, we would like to raise two important questions that will not be dealt with separately by the Congress—the current stage reached by the Iranian revolution, and a few general problems posed by the crisis of the bureaucratic dictatorship and the rise of political revolution in the bureaucrat ized workers states.
The Iranian revolution offers one of the most startling examples of the law of uneven and combined development. On the one hand, we witnessed one of the most impressive revolutionary mass mobilizations of the twentieth century. Literally millions of persons came into the streets of Tehran in steady streams. This mobilization finally smashed the political and moral capacity for resistance of an army which the shah had equipped with more than $35 billion worth of ultramodern weapons, and pampered with a high standard of living. The victory was won despite repression that cost the lives oftens of thousands of demonstrators in the single culminating phase of the revolution ary upsurge.
On the other hand, we saw a clergy, the Shi'ite clergy, take over the political and ideological leadership of the movement. A battle that began in opposition to the shah's autocracy, for democratic freedoms, led to the adoption of a constitution that also restricts democratic freedoms, albeit to a much more limited extent than under the shah, and that also sets up a kind of autocracy—that of Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini's personality is, in a certain way, the symbolic synthesis of this contra diction. We said before, on other occasions, that the Khomeini phenomenon, which is unique in the history of bourgeois revolutions—not to mention that of the initial phases of the process of permanent revolution—combines the traits of a Danton with those of a Savonarola. But it should be understood that Khomeini can play the role of Savonarola only because he has played that of Danton, that is, because he has shown a remarkable firm ness, intransigence, and audacity in the struggle against the shah, against the Pahlavi dynasty, and against the mon archy. There lies the real source of his prestige and legitimacy in the eyes of the masses, which he is now seeking to rein force and renew through anti-imperialist agitation, which also has powerful support among the masses.
Fundamentally, it is not the hold of religion over the masses that explains the Shi'ite clergy's prestige. It is the political prestige won by that clergy in the struggle against the shah's tyranny that explains its ability to establish—for the time being—the confused and deceptive ideology of the "Islamic Republic," and to strengthen the hold of religion. Of course, the special social composition of the population of Iran's big urban centers, where semiproletarianized layers of recent rural origin still predominate over the working class strictly speaking, partly explains the relative ease with which Khomeini has been able to maneuver up to the present. But, we repeat, the fundamental cause of his ascendancy is political, not religious. It derives both from the absence of any other mass political force that was deeply engaged in the struggle against the shah, and from the role of organizer and coordinator of the anti dictatorial struggle played by the Shi'ite clergy. In the eyes of the majority of the masses, who are still only at the first stage of their politicization, the Shi'ite clergy appears as the authentic and legitimate leadership of the revolution. There is an obvious parallel with the nationalist and populist leaderships of revolutions (or of initial stages of revolutionary upsurges) in many semicolonial countries, such as Mexico, Argentina (Per6n), Bolivia (MNR), and Egypt (Nasser), to take only the most typical examples.
For us, the bourgeois character of the state and government, and the thoroughly reactionary character of Islamic clerical ism, leave not the slightest doubt. But what is clear to us is not clear to 80 percent of the Iranian masses. Moreover, we never confuse the mass movement with its temporary leadership. It would thus be absurd and sectarian to think that the Iranian revolution has already been beaten, or that it is already in the midst of a downturn, solely because of the reactionary ideology of the current leaders of the revolutionary process. For us, the fundamental criterion is the dynamic of the mass movement. Some currents of our movement (not to speak of the CPs and the Social Democracy) made this error with catastrophic political consequences between 1944 and 1950 in Argentina, judging the situation and the nature of the trade-union move ment led by the Peronists by the ideology or origins of Peron, and not according to the trajectory and social nature of the mass movement.
Khomeinism obviously encompasses a three-fold contradiction.
It came to power on the crest of a powerful mobilization of socially di sin her it ed masses. They rose up against the shah's tyranny, not only to win democratic freedoms or the right of oppressed nation alities to self-determination, but also, and especially, to end their poverty, which implies a number of precise socioeconomic goals—a job for the millions of unemployed; decent housing for the millions of homeless now living in slums; decent wages, and indeed, workers control for the millions of workers; an end to galloping inflation, mainly through a growth in the domestic production of food; a genuine agrarian reform and a tolerable life for millions of small farmers; an end to the centuries-old oppression of women subjected to unbearable burdens.
Khomeini cannot satisfy these deeply felt aspirations, any more than any other bourgeois or petty-bourgeois politician, for that matter. The political authority he enjoys among the masses is, for the time being, the only dam protecting the Iranian bourgeoisie against a new phase of revolutionary mobilizations, this time taking on a direct anticapitalist character, the nature of a real social revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie to le rates Khomeini and is util izing the influence of the Shftte clergy and the confused notion of the "Islamic Republic"—nay, "Islamic socialism"—to delay as much as possible the winning of political and organizational autonomy by the proletariat.
But there are limits to the masses' patience. Given the Khomeini regime's in ability to satisfy their material and national aspirations, ruptures will take place, differences will deepen among the clergy itself; it is only a matter of time before it is by passed. Therefore, it is necessary to crack down, as they have begun to crack down on the Kurds and the far left, especially after August 1979. But the masses are militant, mobilized, full of self-confidence. Many factory committees are beginning or are continuing to defy the authority of the bosses and the govern ment. The memory of the shah's repression is close at hand. To attack such a move ment head-on would be suicidal. Therefore, what is involved is a prob ing, limited, selective crackdown, which is frequently obliged to back off.
Moreover, a frontal onslaught would require an effective instrument, which in Iran could only be the army. However, the army is divided, dismembered, unsure of itself, especially after the traumatic shock it suffered during the last weeks of the shah's tyranny. Time is needed in order to reforge it as an adequate instrument of the counterrevolution. Khomeini will not be able to play that role to the end. At most, he can initiate it.
Finally, for the Iranian bourgeoisie, elimination of the shah's regime was especially aimed at rationalizing the Iranian economy, eliminating or at least reducing nepotism, waste, megalomania, the destruction of agriculture, everything that hampers an organic growth of the capital accumulation theoretically made possible by the substantial oil revenues. Khomeini cannot rationalize anything from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie—except control of the mass movement. Hence the continual division within that same bourgeoisie, within the bazaar, within the state apparatus, within the army top command itself, as to what road to follow. For revolutionary Marxists, the essential things are to correctly judge the dynamic of the mass movement, not to let ourselves become isolated from it, to push it forward, both in terms ofanti-imperialist and democratic demands and in terms of anticapitalist ones; to become the best spoke sp er sons for the masses' deeply held aspirations, recognized by them as such; and at the same time to wage an intransigent battle for the political and organizational class independence of the proletariat.
The chapter of the political resolution concerning the bureaucratized workers states represents an important step for ward compared with similar chapters of political resolutions presented to previous World Congresses. This step forward re flects both a better knowledge of the reality of these countries on the part of our movement—as a result of broader activity—and the growth of political activity and differentiation within these coun tries. We have nothing to add to what the draft political resolution states in this regard, since these problems of concrete analysis and political tactics do not seem to have been a matter of controversy during the pre-World Congress discussion. However, it is necessary to forcefully oppose the idea that periodically re sur fa ces, that the trend toward the economic reforms carried out in the USSR, Eastern Europe, and China, and the closer economic collaboration between the capitalist monopolies and the bureaucratic castes in power in those countries, could lead to a cold restoration of capitalism. More than forty-five years ago, Trotsky correctly characterized the theoretical error underlying such hypotheses. It consists of"running the reformist film backwards," assuming that one could go gradually from a workers state to a bourgeois state, just as the reformists assume that one can go gradually from a bourgeois state to a workers state.
What the Transitional Program calls the "Butenko faction" of the bureaucracy un doubtedly exists. Nor can we doubt that the bureaucracy under mines the fo un da tions of the workers state through the sum total of its economic and political practi ces. But it is one thing to undermine them; it is another thing to overturn them. To overturn the workers state, a slow evolution is not sufficient. An active, violent, brutal counterrevolution is necessary—all the more violent and brutal in that it would involve not only smashing the state apparatus and neutralizing the opposition of a not insignificant section of the bureaucracy that identifies with it, but especially overcoming the resistance of a proletariat that is much stronger than in the past. To believe that the "Carter offensive" could more easily achieve the goal that Weygand, Hitler, Roosevelt or Truman were unable to achieve under conditions infinitely more favorable for imperialism is to be completely mistaken about the development of the relationship of forces, both worldwide and within the bureaucrat ized workers states themselves. What is historically on the agenda in these states— despite an inevitable alternation of con juncture ups and downs—is not the restoration of capitalism, but the upsurge and victory of the antibureaucratic political revolution.
The principal basis for the survival of the bureaucratic dictatorship in the USSR today no longer consists of the backward ness and poverty of the country, or the pressures of capitalist encirclement, al though these factors continue to play a secondary role. It consists of the depoliticization and lack of a clear political alternative capable of mobilizing the Soviet proletariat, which has become the second largest in the world, number ing eighty million. This depoliticization will disappear little by little at first, while disappear ing more rapidly in the "people's democra cies," and as the proletarian revolution rises in the imperialist countries. A careful comparison between the crisis of Maoism and that of Stalinism shows— as the political resolution points out—that the People's Republic of China has never known the degree of depoliticization and passivity on the part of the proletariat that characterized the USSR for so long. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that, in the short run, the chances for a broad politicization of the working class and gains for our ideas are greater today in China than in the USSR. Given the level of development reached by the two countries, this is no doubt a passing phenomenon. But full conclusions should be drawn from it, not only as far as our initiatives are concerned, but also from the standpoint of analyzing China's place in world politics.
We unanimously condemn, in the most energetic way, the counterrevolutionary course of the Peking bureaucracy's foreign policy, whose most shameful expression in the last period was its support to the shah and Pinochet, and to military attacks on Vietnam. But we should avoid two mistakes—that of identifying the People's Republic of China with the ruling bureaucracy in Peking; and that of thinking that Peking has been transformed into a satellite or lasting ally of Washington. Similar errors, made by some in judging the USSR at the time of the Stalin-Hitler pact, led to deviations that are now classic. There are irreconcilable contradictions between the interests of the Chinese bureaucracy, whose dictatorship is based on the suppression of private property, and the interests of the imperialist states. The Peking bureaucracy maneuvers in a cynical, unprincipled way on the world stage-as the Kremlin has done and is still doing—unscrupulously sacrificing the in terests of the workers, poor peasants, and oppressed peoples in many countries. But it is maneuvering to defend its power and privileges, not those of the imperialist bourgeoisie. In the context of these ma neuvers, nothing is either lasting or definitive. Sharp and unexpected turns are inevitable.
One of the consequences of this cynicism on the part of the Moscow and Peking bureaucracies, which is more pronounced than ever, is to provide grist for the mill of the international bourgeoisie's ideological offensive, the natural counterpart to its anti-working-class austerity offensive. The crusade is led under the banner of the "crisis of Marxism." The impotence of the CPs, both pro-Moscow and "Eurocommur ni st," not to speak of the Maoists, in the face of this offensive is painful to watch. It is the task of the Fourth International to resolutely take the lead in defending Marxism and science against this full-fledged revival of obscurantism. It is our conviction that an effective defense of Marxism cannot be limited to preserving its gains, but must combine defense of these gains with an audacious theoretical battle to enrich Marxism through explanations of new phenomena, explanations compatible with its internal logic. The only "existing Marxism" is living, creative, critical Marxism which does not balk at any new challenge.
As a matter of necessity, this World
Congress takes place under the ensign of practical internationalism embodied in an organization. Never has history offered us as many proofs of the disasters that the theory and practice of "national Communism" lead to as in the last twelve months. Never has the fundamental realism of our program and our historic project—to lead the world revolution to victory—been better demonstrated.
In the epoch of imperialism, in the epoch of the ever-increasing internationalization of the productive forces and of the class struggle, there is no way to be internation alist in words while limiting oneself in practice to building national organiza tions. One cannot be internationalist in practice unless one accepts in actual fact the simultaneous building of national proletarian parties and a proletarian inter national.
The special role of the Fourth International in the worldwide workers and revolutionary movement can be summed up in this two-fold battle—a stubborn, uncompromising, daily battle—for the self-organization of the proletariat, and for practical—and practiced—internation al ism. But, likewise, nothing is more in keeping with the profound nature and historic mission of the proletariat itself than its instinctive tendency toward self-organization, and the fact that it is the only social class that can fully and unconditionally accept internationalism. It is by these traits of its nature, more than by any others, that the working class reveals its capacity to save humanity from falling into barbarism and self-destruction. To these threats—more real than ever—there is only one alternative, which only the working class can accomplish—the victory of the worldwide socialist revolution, the Worldwide Republic of Workers Councils.