Issuing body: Emergency Conference of the Fourth International, New York (19–26 May 1940)
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SUPPLEMENTARY DECLARATION OF THE IEC
The conference takes note of the following supplementary considerations, while endorsing the declaration of Crux, Martel, Fischer, Jones, Stuart, Munis, and Richardson concerning the status of the permanent IEC.
1. Lebrun, Johnson, Trent, and Anton constituted an accidental majority on the permanent IEC. The outbreak of the war automatically put into practice the proposal adopted by the First World Congress that the work of the International be transferred overseas. The four comrades mentioned, together with Martel, were the only IEC members present in New York at the moment this change took place. It was understood, however, that all IEC members who could be reached would take part in the deliberations of the Executive. Unfortunately, of the IEC only Jones, Crux, and Fischer could be reached for consultation. Wartime censorship and other difficulties that arose made it impossible to maintain correspondence with the others.
2. Lebrun, Johnson, Trent, and Anton took advantage of their accidental majority to betray the confidence placed in the members of the IEC by the world congress. It is evident that the IEC, and consequently any instance of the IEC, had the elementary duty of defending the programme of the Fourth International as adopted by the congress until such time as a new congress could be convened to modify that programme. Lebrun and the others began by proposing the abandonment of the slogan of unconditional defence [of the USSR], and subsequently went so far as to advocate a position of outright defeatism on the USSR. They thereby violated the programme and the decisions of the congress, which alone had given them their mandate to the IEC.
3. Beyond these programmatic violations, this majority of the permanent IEC assumed none of its responsibilities when the debate opened within the American SWP. Although in the majority on the permanent IEC, not only did they take no trouble to organize meetings or to concern themselves with the problems of discipline and international collaboration in order to defuse the conflict within the SWP, but on the contrary, they failed to respond to the call to order issued by the administrative secretary of the committee, whose selection they had themselves supported.
4. When the danger of a split threatened the SWP, they took the side of the splitters and supported their unprecedented scheme of allowing a group within the International to bring out a public organ with a political line contrary to the principles of the Fourth International. This is what they did, instead of acting as responsible mandatories of the international organization, when they were approached on 20 February by Crux, Fischer, and Martel, members of the IEC, to join them in an attempt to check the tendency toward a split. This was on their part a final manifestation of abdication of their duty and their responsibility, and it called for emergency measures on the part of the sections of the Fourth International and of all its members who had remained faithful to its programme.
5. It should be stressed that Lebrun and the others represent nothing within the Fourth International today. The authority of Trent and Anton rested on the mandates entrusted to them by the American section. That section has since completely repudiated them, by a strong majority. As for Johnson, he held his mandate from the British section. But the British section, in its press and in all the communications we have received, condemns defeatism regarding the Soviet Union and continues to subscribe to the entirety of the programme of the Fourth International, including the position of unconditional defence of the USSR. Lebrun held his mandate from the world congress, as representative of the Latin American sections. To our knowledge, all the Latin American sections have declared themselves in favour of maintaining the position of unconditional defence — in other words, for maintaining respect for the decisions of the First World Congress and for the principles of the Fourth International. Even his own section, that of Brazil, in a letter referred to in the declaration, affirmed itself ready, despite a strong defeatist tendency manifesting itself within its ranks, to continue to put forward the slogan of unconditional defence until the adoption of an international decision. Thus all those who have been named represent no one but themselves within the Fourth International, now that they have betrayed the confidence placed in them by the last world congress.
6. The Emergency Conference, given that a majority of the previous permanent International Executive Committee violated the principles and decisions of the Fourth International and effectively contributed to the split of the most important section of the Fourth International, considers justified the decision of the American, Canadian, and Mexican sections to convene the conference in order to designate a new International Executive Committee mandated to carry forward the task of the International.
7. In convening an emergency congress to elect a new executive body, the American, Mexican, and Canadian sections, together with the members of the IEC who remained loyal, acted as was their duty in order to preserve the Fourth International from disintegration in this trying period of war and social convulsions into which we have entered. Their action must be regarded as a service rendered to the whole International and to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class the world over.
8. The composition of the conference, which includes mandated representatives of the sections of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Germany, and Chile, and which has received messages from Argentina and Uruguay, proves that our International is ready to face any eventuality. Its unanimous decision to repudiate the splitters and to uphold the programme of the Fourth International carries the authority of the support of all the active sections of the International. It therefore feels fully justified in vesting the responsibilities of the International in the Executive Committee elected by it, which is empowered to speak in the name of the World Party of the Socialist Revolution and to carry forward its task with full powers until the day when a new plenary congress of the Fourth International can be held.