Report presented to the central committee of the Committees for the Fourth International, and adopted unanimously 20 September 1940 (published in Bulletin du Comité pour la IVe Internationale, no. 2) Central committee of the Committees for the Fourth International
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The national question, which was once at the forefront of revolutionaries' concerns, finds itself in 1940 once again among the essential problems that present-day Europe poses to internationalists. It is clear, however, that this problem has changed entirely, not only since the time of the Communist Manifesto, but even since Lenin. It is one of those problems that urgently need to be rethought. We shall confine ourselves to an examination of its new aspects, reserving for a more thorough discussion the historical references and comparisons.
The Hitlerite Plan
German fascism is in the process of organising Europe in its own manner, which is barbaric. Barbaric, because the world economy is ripe for unitary organisation, for socialism; by confining itself to a continental organisation, German fascism mutilates the real possibilities of development. The attempt to organise capitalism can only lead to economic regression. The struggle for the division of the world will continue with still greater violence, from continent to continent. Preparation for this struggle will demand new efforts of armament, a formidable navy; once again, the weight of armaments will crush the production of consumer goods and extend misery. This German caricature of socialism will reveal itself to be the very antithesis of true socialism. To organise Europe, it will have to destroy the European economy for the benefit of German banking and industry, break not only the economic and political structure of the non-German countries of Europe, but also totally destroy their industrial enterprises, reduce them to a series of agricultural estates, suppliers of foodstuffs, purchasers of industrial products. But this European autarky, cut off, like German autarky, from the world's sources of raw materials and essential supplies, will have to devote a large part of its industrial activity to the production of costly ersatz goods, and will thereby further lower the standard of living of the masses. Such is the fundamental economic character of the organisation of Europe as envisaged in Berlin.
This definition, however, does not exhaust all the aspects of the development contained within the Nazi formula. In giving concrete content to the European formula, it imposes on the consciousness of the masses the necessity of going beyond national frontiers; it creates the objective framework for a continental revolution. At the same time, it creates this framework not by dissolving the nations into a superior economic unity, but by crushing almost all the nations of Europe for the benefit of capitalist Germany. Such is the political problem posed by the Germanisation of Europe. Finally, flowing from the economic problem, there arises a social problem: the bourgeoisies of the vassalised countries tend to be reduced to the role of mere appendages of the German bourgeoisie; the proletariat of these countries tends to shrink in numbers, to be degraded to the rank of labourers; the general standard of living of the nation tends to fall, and finally, during the transitional period, this transformation entails profound misery for the broadest layers of the population. In short:
a) a convergence of the immediate interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat of the vassalised countries;
b) the pauperisation of broad layers of the population; the possible radicalisation of broad popular layers;
c) the necessity, more than ever, of counterposing to all the utopias that such a situation inevitably engenders, a clearly defined doctrine and tactic.
France, an Oppressed Nation
France thus tends to become an oppressed country. The fact that it still possesses its own government, the fact that behind that government the military and classic nationalist reaction maintain themselves, changes nothing: the powerless government of a powerless bourgeoisie and a defeated army, the Pétain government, in the final analysis, cannot but be the instrument of the oppressors; its policy and social orientation prepare the way for a total seizure of power by Hitler or his agents, for the extension and intensification of national oppression.
The End of the French Empire
The fact that France still possesses, nominally, a colonial empire must likewise create no illusions. This empire is kept by the Weygands and other Catroux on behalf of German or Japanese imperialism, and is defended in their name against British imperialism. The decline of the French bourgeoisie is underscored, day by day, in striking fashion, by the disintegration of the empire. On this terrain, we counterpose to the policy of bargaining and brigandage carried out on the backs of the peoples of Africa and Asia the free right of colonial peoples to determine their own fate; colonial peoples do not ask to change masters, they ask to be free.
Towards the Socialist United States of Europe
On the fundamental slogans to be put forward, no disagreement is possible: to a Europe unified by violence for the benefit of the German trusts, we counterpose the Socialist United States of Europe and of the world. Not only is this our primary objective, but it is also the only one that can and must be achieved: history and economics have condemned the national state; they demand a world political organisation. Under no circumstances can we make ourselves the defenders of a return to the juxtaposition of closed European nations. The era of a Europe and a world compartmentalised into nations is closed; this is what we must explain first of all, every time we address the national problem.
The Right of Peoples to Self-Determination
But at the same time, we must explain that we stand for the right of peoples to self-determination. This does not mean: we stand for the right of peoples to refuse socialism; we oppose any use of this right that plays into the hands of reaction. To the Austrians, we said: it is not the duty of the German people of Austria to bring about the triumph of the reaction that crushes the German people of the Reich. On the contrary, it is to preserve, within Austrian independence, whatever rights and working-class forces still exist, to use them for the workers' revolution, thereby to help the German people free themselves from Hitler, and then to achieve the socialist unity of Greater Germany.
The free right of peoples to self-determination means: the liberation of peoples from national and social oppression. In present-day Europe, this means: the right of the various nations and, where applicable, of the various peoples that make up any given nation, to a cultural, administrative organisation, autonomous or independent, within the framework of a Europe economically unified by socialism. The slogan is therefore: we want a free France, a French France, within the framework of a socialist Europe.
The Rights of Peoples within France
If the question is posed in this way, we immediately resolve certain partial problems that are not without interest, such as the Breton or Alsatian problems. We have already had occasion to point out how much the policy pursued by the occupying forces resembles that carried out, by other means, in Czechoslovakia: they have undertaken a dismemberment of France in order to more easily achieve their economic and political ends. The right of peoples to self-determination is being used in this context to separate Brittany and Alsace-Lorraine from France. Should we support these attempts, or oppose them, or simply take the accomplished fact as our starting point and demand a free Brittany, a free Alsace, within a socialist Europe?
This last attitude, in the final analysis, does nothing but justify Hitler's reactionary gesture for the immediate present, and postpones the solution of the problem to the Greek calends. We must, on the contrary, aim above all to keep the bloc of the oppressed compact. Autonomous Brittany or autonomous Alsace-Lorraine do not, moreover, intend to become states, but to enjoy certain cultural freedoms within the framework of a broader national community. It therefore seems clear to us that we must formulate our policy roughly as follows:
1) For Brittany: We want a Brittany enjoying, within the framework of a France liberated from capitalism:
a) the means to freely develop its popular culture;
b) a programme of assistance and economic development;
c) in particular, the expropriation of the great landowners and aid to the small farmers.
2) For Alsace-Lorraine: The problem here is more complex. Alsace-Lorraine is a land of mixed culture, but one whose foundation is unquestionably Germanic; economically, it is linked equally to France and to Germany. But what must be decisive in this case is:
a) opposition to a pure and simple annexation, of an imperialist character;
b) opposition to the reactionary and corrupting character of such a measure (the vassalisation of France, the entry of the Alsace-Lorraine proletariat into the ranks of the privileged proletariat).
Consequently, we demand:
a) an Alsace-Lorraine statute granting broad administrative, cultural, and even economic autonomy to Alsace-Lorraine;
b) on this basis, a plebiscite to determine whether Alsace-Lorraine belongs to Germany or to France.
For a European Party
We are here only sketching a position that will need to be thoroughly discussed, particularly in the light of the problems of Central Europe. To be complete, it would be necessary to examine all the questions that the substitution, for the Europe of Versailles, of a Europe still more divided, still more absurd, in which every trace of national governments has disappeared, poses to the revolutionary movement. Solutions would need to be provided today to the problems posed by the liberation of the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Ukrainians, the Baltic peoples, the Walloons, the Flemings, the Dutch, the Danes, the Norwegians, the Albanians, and to the problems that the new status of the Balkans is going to raise. For the national problem is not solely that of France, but, to varying degrees and in varying forms, that of all the nations of Europe. Thus a solidarity of oppressed peoples against the oppressor is created — not merely the solidarity that could exist between revolutionaries fighting a common adversary for parallel but non-identical goals (each for the birth or rebirth of their own nation), but a deeper solidarity resulting from an identity of purpose: a socialist Europe. For this very reason, while relying on national sentiment, while immersing the revolutionary organisation in the patriotic current of the masses, we must strive to build a revolutionary, European, centralised organisation. Not to coordinate, to bring together, various national organisations; not to dissolve the proletarian movement into a federation of nationalist currents or parties, but to create a European organisation.
This is the lesson of Lenin. The right of peoples to self-determination, in the old Russia, did not imply division into nationalist revolutionary parties, but on the contrary the energetic centralisation into a single party striking united blows against tsarist absolutism.
Common Action with the Bourgeoisie...
Having thus clarified the meaning and framework of our national action, let us now specify its tactics and its slogans. On the tactical plane, the essential problem is the following: are common actions possible with the national bourgeoisie and with petty-bourgeois nationalist organisations? By what methods?
It is evident that these common actions can have nothing whatsoever in common with the united front advocated by the Bolsheviks in the colonial countries. In those countries, it is a matter of a common struggle for historically progressive objectives (even if they must inevitably be superseded in the very course of the struggle to attain them). In Europe, by contrast, the goals pursued by the bourgeois nationalist movement are historically reactionary (a return to the nation, the reconstruction of a national imperialism).
Under these conditions, common action has meaning only insofar as:
a) it is effectively directed towards the destruction of the dominant German imperialism;
b) it gives rise to a genuine mass movement for the masses' own demands, that is to say, common action has meaning only insofar as it takes place within the framework of the historic objectives of the proletariat, through the mobilisation of the masses for the proletarian programme.
It might be objected that this is an unrealistic way of posing the problem: why would the bourgeoisie agree to ally itself with revolutionaries for a revolutionary programme? But this is to pose the question wrongly.
a) Because, if the revolutionary programme leads to revolution, it does so only through the struggle for immediate objectives. Because we are Bolsheviks, we affirm that these objectives must open the road to the proletarian revolution. If, however, we form a united front with bourgeois elements for these immediate objectives, we do not thereby oblige them to share our opinion regarding the distant consequences of this or that slogan. We leave them free to think that something else will come of it, that we will deceive them, and so on. We ask them only: on this precise slogan, do you agree? Will you support, by whatever concrete means lies in your power, such-and-such a mass workers' action to bring it about? For example: do you accept the idea of workers' production cooperatives to prevent idle machinery being sent off to Germany? Yes? In that case, we propose such-and-such a measure to ensure its rapid organisation. You certainly think that in doing so you are using the workers to preserve your patrimony; we think we are thereby preparing the proletariat's taking in hand of the economy. On this point, subsequent events will decide.
b) The French bourgeoisie has rushed into a dead end: to save itself from revolution, it threw itself into Hitler's arms; to save itself from that grip, it now has nothing left to do but throw itself into the arms of revolution. We do not say that it does so gladly, nor that the fraction of the bourgeoisie capable of playing this game is the most important one — the majority of the bourgeois secretly awaits its salvation from England — a large minority still awaits it from Hitler. It is to the "French" fraction of the bourgeoisie that we extend our hand.
The pro-German fraction of the bourgeoisie, increasingly restricted, can today do nothing more than place its fate entirely in Hitler's hands and pray to God. The pro-English fraction is not playing a very different game. It knows that an English victory would mean the triumph of the Reynaud-Churchill plan, which aims at nothing less than bringing about the absorption of the French Empire into the British Empire, the subjection of the French bourgeoisie to the City, a programme already largely sketched out by the Franco-British economic agreements.
This is why General de Gaulle, former military adviser to the sinister Paul Reynaud, is nothing other than a puppet in the service of the British general staff, a puppet who does not even conceal that his programme is a programme of social reaction dressed up in an English sauce. Gaullism among the broad French masses, however, is a largely progressive phenomenon: the masses, confusedly seeking a point of support for their will to resist, give their ear to the one who can, every evening, calmly speak to them from London. While denouncing the reactionary character of the policy of de Gaulle's team, we must know how to find the way to the millions of French people "who listen to the London radio."
However, our policy on this plane must be oriented above all towards the fraction of the bourgeoisie that above all wants to be French, that senses it can expect the salvation of France only from the popular masses, that is capable of stirring up a petty-bourgeois nationalist movement, capable of playing the card of revolution (of the right or of the left, and, possibly, of both the right and the left at once).
...And the Petty Bourgeoisie
The same principles apply to common action with petty-bourgeois nationalist organisations. To the question, "is collaboration with such-and-such an organisation possible?", we answer, not on the basis of its programme (is it Catholic, conservative, reactionary, authoritarian?) or its social composition, but on the basis of its attitude on the national question (is it Hitlerophile, Anglophile, or simply French?) and its capacity to stir up a mass movement in a given milieu.
Slogans of the National Struggle
Let us now examine what slogans we must put forward, what tactics we must follow, and the modalities of common action:
a) How to find our slogans: the national struggle is made up of an infinite number of detailed slogans. In this domain we make our own any demand capable of finding an echo among the masses. Concretely, this means that every manifestation of the anger of the masses must find an echo in our propaganda; stripped of their sometimes reactionary aspects, oriented towards an overall revolutionary outcome, we must send back to the masses all the slogans that arise within them. We must be the defenders of the riches that generations of French peasants and workers have accumulated. We must also be the defenders of the artistic and scientific treasures of France, the defenders of the magnificent contribution of French writers and scholars to the intellectual patrimony of humanity, the defenders of the great revolutionary and socialist tradition of France, which opened the way for the entire movement of human emancipation, and which sketched out a revolution of thought and of deeds that thinkers of every country have continued and developed.
b) National vigilance committees: it is necessary to create organs of national struggle. We put forward the formation, in neighbourhoods, villages, government offices, and factories, of national vigilance committees. These bodies may be either permanent organisms arising from the masses, controlled by them, in which case they should broaden their objectives to encompass all the political and social problems posed by the present period — or, and this form corresponds more closely to the practical necessities of national struggle at the present, necessarily illegal, stage — temporary organisms, formed whenever a concrete task requires it, by representatives of all organisations determined to call on the masses to struggle for a specific objective.
c) The central slogan: passive resistance. The relationship of forces at the present time, between a divided, defeated, disarmed French people and an occupying force determined to brutally impose its will, demands a cautious tactic aimed at arousing among the masses a feeling of solidarity against the oppressor, without confronting the repression head-on. This is why the central slogan must be: passive resistance.
But passive resistance itself must be organised: grumbling must be orchestrated, ill will systematised, delays, negligence, and misunderstanding skilfully arranged. In every concrete case, it is necessary to know how to reduce to nothing, through sheer force of inertia, any attempt to impose new burdens or new vexations on the French people.
d) Slogans: the number of national slogans is infinite. Here we shall try only to bring a few of them into relief: Down with the pillage of French wealth! The wheat that French peasants have grown, the milk from the cows they have raised, the machines without which workers would be without work and without bread, the laboratory equipment built by genius — all this French wealth must remain in France. Idle machinery must be handed over to workers' cooperatives, "surplus" agricultural produce requisitioned for the women and children of the great centres!
Liberation of all French prisoners! France needs the arms of her most robust sons to raise herself from ruin.
Evacuation of French territory: the French people need peace, not war, to rebuild France.
The people of France want a united France! Abolition of all German administrative measures aimed at breaking the unity of France, restoration of the free movement of persons and correspondence.
Abolition of German censorship! The French people need a free and independent press to rebuild a free and independent France. Free publication of the workers' press!
Down with the arbitrary requisitioning of food, linen, private homes, schools, and public and social institutions!
Withdrawal of German currency! The French people wish to create real wealth through their labour, and not be plunged into misery by inflation.
e) The problem of fraternisation: our struggle is not directed against the German people. It is directed against those who, in oppressing the German people, make of them an instrument for the oppression of the peoples of Europe. We must, on the contrary, explain to the German soldier that we wish to struggle together with him to rid Germany of its capitalists and their fascist state. But fraternisation is not the complaisance of the vanquished towards the victor, of the oppressed towards the instrument of oppression. We are not brothers, but the pitiless adversaries of the Nazi in uniform. To him, we speak as to a deceived brother, without provocation, with frankness and firmness, seeking to win him over to the cause of the oppressed, but also without hiding from him our irreducible hostility for as long as he makes himself the instrument of the oppression of his own people and of ours.
Conclusion
Let us, in closing, dispel one scruple: should we not fear what might be called "Radek-isms"? Do we not risk repeating the policy of the German Communist Party in 1923, which knew how to place itself at the head of national demands, but by that very move drowned itself in them and succeeded only in swelling the ranks of the terrorist nationalist organisations? We have already answered this in advance: participation in the national struggle has meaning for us only if:
a) it is accompanied by propaganda for the world proletarian revolution;
b) it is closely linked to the European and world revolutionary movement;
c) it mobilises the working masses for a struggle conducted by class methods.
To confine ourselves to a programme, an activity, to nationalist actions alone, would be to repeat the errors of Radek and the German Communist Party. To integrate ourselves into the movement of popular patriotism, to broaden our base of action for the socialist revolution, can only allow us to advance and to root our activity among the masses.
Report presented to the central committee of the Committees for the Fourth International and adopted unanimously in Bulletin du Comité pour la IVe Internationale, no. 2, 20 September 1940