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CoReP On the Anti-Imperialist United Front

But this leaves open the question of the orientation in practice within the dominated countries. During the debates of the 3rd International, Lenin accepted a [Excerpted from the Response to the Gruppe fr strategy different from what he put forward in Russia revolutionre arbeiterinnen politik (Group for Revo- increasingly clearly after 1903: the democratic revolutionary Workers Politics GRA/Austria), July 28, lution will be led by a bloc between the working class 2006.] and the peasantry, and it is necessary to reject any [Translation by WD from Rvolution Permanente No. alliance with the Russian liberal bourgeoisie. Lenin 2, Sept. 2007, aided by an awkward and occasionally started from the feebleness of the communist nuclei and the weakness of the proletariat in these counseriously inaccurate translation on the site of the tries: GRA. Quotations from Lenin and Trotsky are taken, where possible, from standard English translations We have here quite a number of representatives of instead of translating the French versions; to put the revolutionary movement in the colonial and them in context, I have added some extensions of the backward countries. This is only a small beginning, quotations in brackets. I have also added some clarifi- but the important thing is that a beginning has been cations to the text in brackets.] made. At this Congress we see taking place a union

By the Permanent Revolution Collective (CoReP), on the site of the Groupe Bolchevik (France)

The 3rd International wavered over strategy for the backward countries, in particular over class alliances, as discussed during the 2nd Congress of the Communist International (1920), the 1st Congress of the Peoples of the East (1920), and the 4th Congress of the Comintern (1922). At Lenins insistence, understanding the revolutionary character of the movement of the peoples of the colonies and other dominated countries, the Communist International projected the victorious strategy of the Bolshevik Party in Russia onto the world scale as an alliance of the proletariat of Europe with the peasants of the countries of Asia. [With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchalpeasant relations predominate,] it is particularly important to bear in mind ... to give special support to the peasant movement against the landowners, against landed proprietorship, and against all manifestations or survivals of feudalism, and to strive to lend the peasant movement the most revolutionary character by establishing the closest possible alliance between the West European communist proletariat and the revolutionary peasant movement in the East ... (Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, 2nd Congress of the CI, 1920)

between revolutionary proletarians of the capitalist, advanced countries, and the revolutionary masses of those countries where there is no or hardly any proletariat ... (Lenin, Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International, 2nd Congress of the CI, July 1920) From this Lenin deduced the necessity of an alliance with the national bourgeoisie: The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, [but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.] (Lenin, Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, for The Second Congress Of The Communist International, June 1920) He clashed with M.N. Roy of India, who said: The rupture in the colonial countries between the bourgeois democratic movement led by the bourgeoisie and the movement of the workers and poor peasants is growing worse ceaselessly. The former is trying to control the latter. The CI must oppose this control ... (The Communist International and Colonial Problems)

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The result of the debate is rather confused. Certain aspects among the most debatable of the theses projected by Lenin were mitigated. Thus they were unanimously adopted by the 2nd Congress along with the Complementary Theses of Roy, which were more contradictory than complementary, according to the proposal of Henk Sneevliet (Indonesia). The false character of Lenins positions was rapidly confirmed in Turkey, where the bourgeois nationalist movement assassinated in 1921 Mustafa Suphi, the delegate to the 1st Congress of the CI, and massacred the entire leadership of the young Communist Party.

tries corresponds to the workers' united front in the advanced countries, and if the superior form of the workers' united front (as Trotsky said later) is the soviet, what is the superior form of the Anti-Imperialist United Front? The Anti-Imperialist United Front is the proposal by the communist parties for a political coalition with bourgeois nationalism in the dominated countries. The reporter for the Commission on the Eastern Question, Karl Radek, was explicit in addressing the 4th Congress:

The 2nd Congress had decided to support the bourgeois nationalist movement in the colonies: this was Between the 3rd and 4th Congresses of the CI, the KPD a correct decision, and it is necessary to continue to [Communist Party of Germany] and the leadership of conform to it, in spite of the "treason" of Kemal Pathe CI adopted the tactic the workers united front sha in Turkey, which represents an episode in the based on the German experience and the Russian class struggle. In the East, the revolution is not close, revolution. By definition, the workers united front and we must not overestimate the revolutionary was opposed to any alliance with the bourgeoisie: forces The precise task of the CI and its sections will be to reveal to the masses the hypocrisy of the workers leaders who prefer a union with the bourgeoisie. ... By the proletarian united front must be understood the unity of all workers who want to fight capitalism ... (Theses on the proletarian united front, 1922.) The 4th Congress of the CI adopted ambiguous theses for countries under domination. Along with all kinds of correct claims, it asserted that the bourgeoisie can play a progressive role in Asia, and it envisages alliances between the bourgeoisie and the workers' party under the term "Anti-Imperialist United Front." The fundamental task, common to all national revolutionary movements, consists in carrying out national unity and political autonomy. The real and logical solution of this task depends on the weight of working masses that this or that national movement would be able to enlist its cause, after having broken all relations with the feudal and reactionary elements. ... Just as the slogan of the proletarian united front has contributed and still contributes in the West to uncover the treason by the social democrats of the interests of the proletariat, the slogan of the anti-imperialist united front will contribute to uncover the hesitations and uncertainties of the various groups of bourgeois nationalism. (General Theses on the Eastern Question, 1922) If the Anti-Imperialist United Front in backward counIn China, "bourgeois nationalism" was called the Guomindang. The Chinese communists entered the Guomindang in 1923. In 1926, Bukharin and Stalin gave them the assignment not to create soviets but to slow the workers down so as not to discomfort the Guomindang. In 1927, the CI founded an "AntiImperialist Alliance" on the world scale with the Guomindang; Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Guomindang, was named an honorary member of the CI. The crushing of the proletarian revolution in China in 1927 and the massacre of CCP members by the Guomindang made necessary a programmatic rectification which a part of the Russian Opposition had already outlined.

The 4th International Removes an Ambiguity by the 3rd International by Adopting the Strategy of Permanent Revolution
Since 1922, there has been a revolution and a counter-revolution in China. [This] marked the birth of the International Left Opposition. There was the Russian Revolution. Here is a test. Then it was the Chinese Revolution we began with this. (Fusion with the Lovestonites?, July 29, 1938 in Writings, Supplement 1934-40, p. 777.)

When Stalin and Bukharin invented "socialism in one

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country," forgot Lenin's advice and trampled on the safeguards of the first four congresses of the CI, regressing back to Menshevism and plunging into the alliance with the Guomindang, Trotsky multiplied his warnings against submission to the nationalist leadership, called for leaving the Guomindang and for dissolving the Anti-Imperialist Alliance, and drew essential, decisive, lessons from the tragedy of the Chinese revolution:

International means that we value its basic strategy, not every sentence and above all not the tactic of the Anti-Imperialist United Front which history has proved wrong.

Equally formalistic is your statement that you find unacceptable the statutes of the French Communist League which solidarize with the first four congresses of the Communist International. In all likelihood, there is not a single French comrade who holds that The Chinese revolution has a national bourgeois char- everything in the decisions of the first four conacter [principally because the development of the gresses is infallible and immutable. It is a question of productive forces of Chinese capitalism collides with the basic strategic line. (Trotsky, To the Editorial its governmental customs dependence upon the Board of Prometeo, June 19, 1930) countries of imperialism. The obstruction of the deAfter the experiences of the CI in the countries under velopment of Chinese industry and the throttling of domination, the Left Opposition extended and systhe internal market involve the conservation and retematized the strategy of Permanent Revolution, birth of the most backward forms of production in which had been conceived by Trotsky for Tsarist Rusagriculture, of the most parasitic forms of exploitasia and which was entirely confirmed by 1917. tion, of the most barbaric forms of oppression and violence, the growth of surplus population, as well as Even if the abandonment of the erroneous theses of the persistence and aggravation of pauperism and all the CI was not explicit, for reasons easy to undersorts of slavery.] No matter how great the specific stand at a time when the Stalinists were slandering weight of the typically feudal elements in Chinese the Bolsheviks-Leninists and setting Lenin against economy may be, they can be swept away only in a Trotsky, the AIUF was never cited by the Left Opposirevolutionary way, and consequently not in alliance tion, and it is clear to every careful reader that Trotwith the bourgeoisie but in direct struggle against it. sky had dropped it. The Groupe Bolchevik challenged the POR of Argentina to find a reference to it in the Trotsky, The Chinese Revolution and the Theses of documents of the 4th International during Trotskys Comrade Stalin, May 17, 1927) lifetime. (See Rvolution Permanente No 1.) We still await the answer. What then remains of the "Anti-

Imperialist United Front"?

Trotsky in 1931 established against Radek, who had just defected to the Kremlin bureaucracy that the No decision of the CI was infallible. The first four constrategy of the Bolsheviks before 1917 was thereafter gresses were inadequate concerning democracy outdated. However, this strategy was opposed to alliwithin the party, fascism, the analysis of the capitalist ance with the liberal or democratic bourgeoisie (as economy, class alliances in countries under dominawas recommended by the Mensheviks): tion... Lenin raised the question of an alliance of the workLikewise, the revolutionary cadres had to urgently ers and peasants irreconcilably opposed to the liberal deal with problems for which Marx and Engels left bourgeoisie. (Trotsky, Permanent Revolution, 1931, them no precise guidelines. In the light of eighty ch. 3) years of retreat, the AIUF must be regarded as a confused, anachronous and dangerous formula, testiIf Permanent Revolution supplants the formula mony to a revolutionary stage of our history but cer- "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the tainly not a slogan for the present. farmers," a fortiori it makes null and void the AntiImperialist United Front, since that means an alliance As with the programmatic documents from 1930 to with the bourgeoisie. 1940 which were adopted by the 4th International, our reference to the first four congresses of the 3rd The Communist International repeated the experi-

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ence of the old revolutions in a thoroughly new historical situation by doing everything it could to subject the Chinese workers and peasants to the political leadership of the national liberal Chiang Kai-shek and later of the 'democrat' Wang Ching-wei Radek has simply overlooked this. That is why he leads us not only back from the formula of the permanent revolution, but also back from Lenin's 'democratic dictatorship'-into an empty historical abstraction. (Leon Trotsky, Permanent Revolution, 1931, ch. 3) One of the most decisive contributions of Trotsky is that, in our epoch of capitalist decay, the working class must bring itself to the head of every revolution, even in backward countries where it is socially a minority.

which controls the 3rd International and which turned it into its own instrument, extends the AntiImperialist United Front even to the advanced countries, including those which had a bourgeois revolution, under the name of the Popular Front. In the countries under domination, submitting the proletariat to the national bourgeoisie led to many defeats: Greece in 1944, Iran in 1953, Iraq in 1958, Indonesia in 1965, Jordan in 1970, Chile in 1973, etc.

The 1938 program was not limited to transitional demands. It also rejected the Popular Front for backward countries (and therefore the Anti-Imperialist United Front) as well as for advanced countries, and it updated and improved the strategy of the world revolution by including the question of the degenerated workers' state (political revolution) and by clariNot only the agrarian, but also the national question fying the class character of the revolution in backassigns to the peasantry the overwhelming majority ward countries (permanent revolution). of the population in backward countries an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an The relative weight of the individual democratic and alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the transitional demands in the proletariat's struggle, tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, their mutual ties and their order of presentation, is nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of these determined by the peculiarities and specific conditwo classes can be realized in no other way than tions of each backward country and to a considerable through an irreconcilable struggle against the influextent by the degree of its backwardness. Nevertheence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie. (Trotsky, The less, the general trend of revolutionary development in all backward countries can be determined by the Permanent Revolution, 1931) formula of the permanent revolution. (Trotsky, The The 4th International clearly advises as a strategy the Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the alliance of wage workers with the independent workFourth International) ers and the youth organizations, under the hegemony of the proletariat. Moreover, the 1940 Manifesto rejects Radek's AntiImperialist United Front and any political coalition It is necessary to distinguish the united front from with the bourgeoisie: joint actions. A joint action, in particular a shortterm action, is one thing. But the capitulation to the The fight for the national independence of the colobourgeoisie, a permanent united front like the nies is, from the point of view of the revolutionary French Popular Front, is another thing. It is comproletariat, a transitory stage on the road which will pletely different. We must promote a united plunge the backward countries into the international front with the peasant and student organizations. socialist revolution. The 4th International does not (Trotsky, Discussions on China, 1935) draw up a wall between backward countries and advanced ones, between democratic and socialist revoUp through 1927 Radek defended the adhesion of lutions. It combines them and subordinates them to the CCP to the Guomindang, and he kept justifying it the world struggle of the oppressed against the opafterwards. From 1934 on, the leadership of the 3rd pressors. Just as the only authentically revolutionary International and the Communist Parties in the impeforce of our time is the international proletariat, in rialist countries foundered into patriotism, making the same way the only true program for the liquidaStalinism the twin of social democracy and confirmtion of any oppression, social or national, is that of ing the diagnosis of the Left Opposition in 1933: the the permanent revolution. (Trotsky, The Imperialist 3rd International is dead as a revolutionary organizaWar and the World Proletarian Revolution, 1940) tion. The bureaucracy of the USSR, the social force

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In 1922, the Anti-Imperialist United Front Was a Mistake; in 1951, it Was a Crime
In 1951, at the 3rd Congress, the leadership of the 4th International itself revised the program at the 3rd Congress of the FI. In 1952 it turned to the liquidation of the International with the expulsion of the French section, which had opposed its deviations before the 3rd Congress, and with the support by the International Secretariat for the pro-Stalinist factions in the British and American sections. [In the U.S., this refers to the Cochran group.]

precise goals of common action. (Resolution on the Latin America, 1951) 2. Then he fraudulently presented bourgeois nationalist movements (APRA, MNR) as petty-bourgeois.

What distinguishes us from the past, what determines the quality of our current movement and which constitutes the surest pledge of our future victories, is our increasing capacity to understand, to appreciate the movement of the masses such as it exists and to seek to find our place in this movement It is the case for example in Latin America where the mass anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist The Pablo-Mandel-Maitan-Frank-Posadas Internamovement often takes confused forms, under a petty tional Secretariat considered that the Stalinist bubourgeois leadership, as in Peru with the APRA, as in reaucracy, or at least a decisive part of it, was able to Bolivia with the MNR, or even bourgeois as in Brazil change and to adopt "Trotskyism," which made with Vargas, as in Argentina with Pern. (Michel superfluous the construction of workers' revolutionPablo, Report to the 3rd Congress, 1951) ary parties of the Bolshevik type. In countries where the bureaucracy had usurped the power of the work- 3. Finally Pablo introduced the alliance with the bouring class (Yugoslavia, China, Eastern Europe and geoisie, the Popular Front against which the 4th InUSSR), the political revolution, the perspective of de- ternational was founded, under the formula "antifeating the bureaucracy by the working class, was imperialist united front. This term seemed to him actually abandoned. In countries under the rule of more acceptable for a congress of the 4th InternaStalinist parties, the International Secretariat ordered tional taking place eleven years after the assassinaits sections to join the ruling Cps. In the dominated tion of Trotsky. countries, especially in Latin America where there In Bolivia, our section will try to influence the left existed several sections, it meant adaptation to the wing of the MNR. It will recommend a tactic of anti policy of the Stalinists and to the Popular Fronts. -imperialist united front towards the whole of the At the 3rd Congress of the 4th International in 1951, MNR. (Resolution on Latin America, 1951) its leaders Pablo and Mandel regressed into the "Anti One of the weakest points of the International Com-Imperialist United Front, " that is, the alliance with sectors of the national bourgeoisie, against the strat- mittee of the 4th International, the fraction founded egy of the permanent revolution, which was the ex- in 1953 by the sections which resisted Pabloism (China, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, USA), was plicit programmatic basis of the Bolshevik-Leninist its inability to question this 1951 revision and to draw international. As Pablo could not openly act at that lessons from its application in Bolivia in 1952. stage, he intermingled orthodox formulations with the affirmation hesitant or concealed of an orien- Worse, under the leadership of Pierre Lambert, the tation that led him to become an adviser to an Alge- PCI of France adopted this revision with regard to rian bourgeois government. The maneuver went like the nationalist movement in Algeria (MNA) in the this: second half of the 1950's. Under the leadership of 1. First, Pablo called for temporary alliances with anti -imperialist movements of the petty-bourgeoisie something which is actually possible, and even necessary, in certain circumstances. The proletariat and its party could be brought to engage in momentary alliances with one or another movement of the petty bourgeoisie for limited and Gerry Healy, the WRP of Britain applied it to the bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Middle East in the end of the 1970's. Today again, almost all the currents which claim to represent the 4th International and Trotskyism advocate the "Anti-Imperialist United Front," including the CRI of France and the L5I (the former LRCI).

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Indeed, the illegitimate introduction of the Popular Front under the hypocritical formula of AntiImperialist United Front has been used to cover real betrayals of the proletariat under the banner of the 4th International. In Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, Sri Lanka, Algeria ... Pabloism has reproduced the policy of social-democracy and Stalinism. During the Bolivian revolutions in 1952 and 1971, this programmatic revision and historical regression resulted in the subordination of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie, identically to the politics of Stalinism.

"left wing" in the bourgeois nationalist party [the MNR] which controlled the new workers' federation, the COB. [Lechn was appointed minister in the bourgeois government.] The petty-bourgeois government, thanks to the political circumstances, has the possibility of transforming itself into a workers and peasants government. (Lucha Obrera, POR paper, May 25, 1952, quoted by Jos Villa, La Revolucin de 1952, Poder Obrero, 1992, translated into English by Revolutionary History, Summer 1992.) The POR will support the left wing of the MNR in its struggle against the right wing of the party (Lucha Obrera, November 11, 1952) The working class must actively intervene in the formation of the new government. (Lucha Obrera, November 11, 1952) The whole fight is centered on the slogan: total control of the state by the left wing of the MNR. (POR, June 23, 1953, cited by Villa)

The Anti-Imperialist United Front in Practice is the Popular Front

In practice, Pablo and Mandel's line went beyond "temporary alliances for limited and precise goals," both in its objective and in time, and it rapidly extended to nationalisms that were judged bourgeois by the 1951 resolution, like the Justicialist Movement in Argentina. Two Argentinian groups took part to the 3rd Congress, the section recognized by the International Secretariat, the GCI led by Posadas, and the POR led by Moreno. The delegation of the POR, including Moreno, made a self-criticism:

Consequently, thanks to the MNR, aided by its left wing which in turn was flanked by the POR, the BolivTwo POR delegates make a self-criticism: the leader- ian bourgeoisie preserved control of the situation, rebuilt its army and was able to re-establish order. ship of our party was against the slogan of antiimperialist united front (Declaration of the Argen- The POR split from 1953 to 1956, a good part of its tinean POR at the Latin-American Commission, 1951) cadre joining the MNR. In 1971, the remainder of the POR counted on generals to arm the proletariat. AfThus inspired by the 3rd Congress of the FI, the POR ter the working class was crushed, Guillermo Lora, lined up under the banner of bourgeois nationalism. the hopeless partisan of the Anti-Imperialist United During his entire career, Moreno was to build "mass Front, entered into a political coalition with the Staparties" claiming allegiance to Pern, and then to linists and the bourgeois nationalists who opposed Castroism. the Banzer dictatorship in short, a true Popular Front. The 1953 general strike in East Germany and the 1956 revolution in Hungary, like the 1952 revolution In 1956, the POR of Peru supported, together with in Bolivia, rapidly proved the failure of Pabloism. The the Stalinist party, the candidacy of Belande sponPOR Bolivia had a working class basis, with a tradition sored by the national front of young democrats, who and an influence. It played a major role in the insur- founded the bourgeois party Accin Popular. Later he rection of April 1952. A revolution led by a Bolshevik- became president twice. As far as what remained of Leninist party was within reach in Bolivia. It would the POR, it became a Castroist follower of peasant have changed the situation in all Latin America, it guerrillaism, under the name of FIR. In 1985, the siswould have returned the 4th International onto the ter organization of the LCR dissolved into the PUM, [correct] programmatic road, and it would have been which called for voting for the reactionary Fujimori in an inspiration to the whole world. Alas, against all 1990. the lessons of Bolshevism, against the permanent In Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the LSSP, with a significant revolution, the POR supported the MNR bourgeois government of Paz [Estenssoro], aligned with Lechn's working class basis, also implemented the Anti-

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Imperialist United Front. In 1956, the LSSP critically supported the bourgeois SLFP when the latter took the power. In 1960, the LSSP supported the SLFP again during the elections. In 1964, the LSSP entered the bourgeois government. The most important FI section in Asia was destroyed.

Monde, June 26, 2006)

For the L5I, the perspective for the working class is to pressure a bourgeois government. It is following the tracks of the GR, the POUM, the LSSP, the MIR and many others, including the 4th International, which has now a minister in the Lula-Alencar government. The alliance with the bourgeoisies in Asia, which was With the shibboleth of the Popular Front, the L5I advocated by Lenin at the 2nd Congress of the 3rd proves itself to be a variant of centrism and revisionInternational in 1920 for the countries without a real ism. Its line of a "fighting Popular Front" (Marceauworking class, and then formalized under the title Pivert) is antagonistic to the program of breaking "Anti-Imperialist United Front" in 1922 by Radek, with the bourgeoisie. proved to be a historical dead-end: the bourgeoisies The central task of the Fourth International consists in countries under domination have no more revoluin freeing the proletariat from the old leadership, tionary role to play than did the bourgeoisie in Ruswhose conservatism is in complete contradiction to sia in 1905 and in 1917. Besides, the development of the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating capitalthe productive forces numerically strengthened the ism and represents the chief obstacle to historical proletariat in many former colonies and semiprogress. The chief accusation which the Fourth Incolonies: South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea... ternational advances against the traditional organizaThe late Nahuel Moreno ended up questioning pertions of the proletariat is the fact that they do not manent revolution, like the late Tony Cliff before him, wish to tear themselves away from the political semilinked with the strategic slogan of the Constituent corpse of the bourgeoisie Of all parties and organiAssembly. As for the Cliffite SWP, it has more than zations which base themselves on the workers and once supported Muslim reactionaries in countries peasants and speak in their name, we demand that under domination. In its own country, it takes part in they break politically from the bourgeoisie and enter a petty-bourgeois nationalist party (SSP) in Scotland upon the road of struggle for the workers' and farmand it has itself sponsored a Popular Front coalition ers' government. On this road we promise them full (Respect) in England with a Muslim organization support against capitalist reaction. At the same time, (MAB) and a reformist leader who favors immigration we indefatigably develop agitation around those controls and opposes abortion (Galloway). transitional demands which should in our opinion form the program of the "workers' and farmers' govThe adoption by the LRCI of the "Anti-Imperialist ernment." (Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism United Front" led WP and its L5I to adulate the Social and the Tasks of the Fourth International, 1938) Forum, like the SWP and its IST, and to a policy of putting pressure on the ruling Popular Front in Brazil: Comrades of the GRA, if you are faithful to the program, if you reject the Popular Front, put an end to The Brazilian working class, poor landless peasants the legacy of liquidators of the 4th International with and small farmers must be welded into an unstoppatheir slogan that justifies coalitions with the bourble power to force the Lula government off the path geoisie! The proletariats of Venezuela and Bolivia of enslavement to the IMF and its domestic backers, need a clear program, neither regression nor confuand onto the road of confrontation with Brazilian sion. capitalism. (Fifth International no. 2) The L5I nourished the grotesque hope that the PTPSDB-PDT-PRB government will "confront capitalism." Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is a candidate for his own succession Mr. Lula da Silva will be accompanied by the same vice-president, Jos Alencar, of the Brazilian Republican Party, linked to the Evangelists. (Le