Pablo and Cuba

Pablo and Yugoslavia

These are all true. This is all that happened. And this you could only understand at that time if you viewed Yugoslavia from the point of view of its whole development, and looked at it instead of just a moment and projected that. Furthermore, because of his whole outlook toward Yugoslavia, Pablo had no active attitude toward Yugoslavia, or let's say he felt that you could win Tito over by compliments. Everyone knows this: he turned the Fourth International into a propaganda machine for the Tito regime. Sure he did. You all remember it. You go back and read some of the stuff that came out then. I don't think you feel too comfortable with it now, unless you change the name to Fidel, maybe. But you will not feel comfortable as far as it relates to Yugoslavia. He turned the Fourth International into a propaganda machine for Tito along the lines that if only we can get close to him, and the way we get close to him is just find nice things to say about him in our press, get close to him, invite him to the leadings [?] of the Fourth International and so on, this way he will be won over to Trotskyism. But that's nothing. That means nothing. You do not win people over that way.

He had no conception of the independent intervention in Yugoslavia of the working class, of the Trotskyist party, or just of the working class in general. The working class were to be given power from above by Tito. They were not to struggle for it. It was to be handed to them. And who was Pablo? Pablo was the observer. He was up on his cloud. He was looking at this panorama of events that was sweeping along in Yugoslavia, and these objective forces were transforming Tito. And where was our movement? It was supposedly up on that cloud with him. It was this kind of thinking that led to the type of political outlook that brought about the split in 1953. It was for these reasons that Pablo said, enter the Stalinist parties, and enter them with a conciliatory attitude toward the leadership, because the leadership of these parties are going to be transformed the way the Yugoslav party has been transformed, by the pressure of the masses, especially under conditions of an impending world war, which his impressionists [?] also saw. He saw that the Cold War was stiffening. Of course it was stiffening. So the Cold War is stiffening, the Third World War is on the agenda. Empiricism, impressionism [?], is gone. And in looking back at that material, Pablo enters the discussion, the international discussion, as if an alien outside method and approach was there.

Trotsky's method and Pablo's criteria for worker states

Now, I'm going to be frank about it. The other comrades had a lot of weaknesses. They were slow. I'm speaking specifically of comrades who made the finest contributions in the period. They should not be slighted over. Comrades should go back and read that material. Comrades must say that Ernest Germain played a fine role in the period up to and after the Second World Congress. Comrades have to say that John G. Wright in this country made wonderful contributions. Other comrades of the party here did. Comrade Stein in his presentation on Eastern Europe and so on. This is fine material. They were using a correct method. They had an incorrect theory. They were slow to take into account the new changes in East Europe. They tended to view the structural assimilation of East Europe into the Soviet orbit in a too mechanical way, insisting that Stalinism could only expand in this area through the actual incorporation of these regions in it. That was Germain's weakness. He was weak theoretically, but he was correct in his method. He was functioning with the method of Trotsky.

Pablo abandoned all that and walked into the movement in 1948, for the first time in our history, with a new criterion for worker states. All you need is nationalized property. All you need is a monopoly on foreign trade. This is all you need, and you've got a worker state. What did our party say? Our party said, boom, in 1949, 1950. What's more, Stein said. The majority of the Political Committee said it, not Joe. But Joe's held a lot of positions. But this is what we said. This was rejected by our movement. It was rejected because it was wrong. We said you can only determine a workers' state by bringing up the question of origin, not just empirically seeing what it is at the moment. That was the trouble we had with Shachtman. He just wanted to look at it as it was at the moment, and to him the appearance he saw was called bureaucratic collectivism. We said that's wrong. You can't understand Russia without understanding the Russian Revolution and its degeneration, and therefore the traditions of the Russian Revolution and the property forms that remain.

So we have to say to these people, you can't just look at a country, see how much nationalized property. Look at Egypt. They've got a planned economy. They've expropriated all major capitalists because the capitalists were so reactionary they wouldn't even invest in capital development. What do you have in Egypt? You can't judge it that way. I can go into Eastern Europe and show you in even more detail how this method falls apart: how the countries that were first structurally incorporated into the Soviet Union, first became essentially worker states, had the least amount of nationalized property, and some of those that took the longest to become a deformed worker state were far more nationalized countries, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, as contrasted to Romania and Bulgaria. This was a new method, a new empirical approach: somehow worker states, you just look at the state, see how much nationalized property they are, you got your criteria here, criteria there.

Cuba: the same mistake again

I don't have to polemicize again. Read Comrade Wright, read Comrade Stein. They weren't wrong. They made mistakes. They weren't basically wrong in their theoretical or their methodological approach. They made errors, and Pablo took advantage of their errors to introduce an alien method. And to me that's the same situation here. I think the comrades in Britain are wrong. I'll say it. I'd be very happy to say it. They're not all wrong. They're right in saying that in agriculture essentially capitalist relations remain, except in a few state farms. The bulk of agriculture remains in private holdings. They're right in saying that the planned economy isn't really yet fully planned. They are wrong in saying Castro is a representative of the capital [?]. He is not. Cuba is well on its way to becoming precisely what Yugoslavia, China, Eastern Europe, and Russia are. Yes, that is my opinion.

But we have, the comrades today are reacting to an impression of the Cuban reality in the same way that Pablo reacted to Yugoslavia. In my opinion, they're going to be proven just as wrong. Pablo wasn't proven right. He was proven wrong. Or, if you prefer it, he was proven half right. He was right that it was a worker's state, but he was wrong when he thought it wasn't going to be a deformed worker's state. I think very well, comrades, you may be proven half right again. It may very well be a worker's state. You want to call it a worker's state? It's a matter of designation, the point of qualitative change from some quantitative change. But you're going to be very, very wrong if you try to maintain, as Pablo did then, that Cuba is going to evolve into a healthy worker's state with real proletarian rule without the proletariat independently participating in that process.

You also look at Cuba from a distance, from afar. You see this objective tide transforming things. And what is your policy? To support what the Cuban leadership says. I'm informed here that our great weakness is that we didn't see that there was a Stalinist danger in Cuba. Of course there was. We said at the last convention that there was a division between Castro and the Stalinists, and we should support Castro. At that time, comrades, there was no Stalinist threat in Cuba. The Militant raised the question of a Stalinist danger in Cuba only after Castro did. So maybe Castro is a better Marxist. But is that the real thing? No, it's not the real thing. The real thing is we have a policy of simply going along and describing reality in Cuba, not intervening in it. We do not feel that our intervention, or the independent intervention of the working class itself in Cuba, will determine these events, will have a determining impact on these events. We do not look to that force in Cuba today. We look to the government. We look to the state apparatus.

We even go so far as to minimize the correct steps that Castro himself has taken. Joe does it here. To him, the struggle with Escalante is the struggle against an unreconstructed Stalinist. Isn't it a struggle against Stalinism? Isn't it a struggle against a section of a political movement in Cuba, the Stalinist party, and shouldn't we be saying that about Cuba and warning the Cubans of the necessity of the struggle not only against Escalante but against Stalinism in all its manifestations? Hoy has just been made the organ of the new United Party. Blas Roca takes his orders direct from Khrushchev. Is there any question of that? Is Blas Roca now no longer a Stalinist? Is there no longer a danger in Cuba of Stalinism? Hoy is the official organ of the new United Party. Pravda has supported this action. Has Khrushchev been won over to Trotskyism? Or perhaps a Stalinist threat remains in Cuba, though it has been partially countered, which we should support. I'll go back to that a little later.

Can a workers' state be made without a Marxist party?

Now, the Congress, on the basis of reacting to Cuban events, have come up with a bold assertion. They say now it is possible to create worker states, with a proviso, only in the colonial areas, though it's not really specified why only in the colonial areas, without a Marxist party. And furthermore, they even suggest, in my opinion this is more than a suggestion, that the worker state can be created without the workers, by attributing to the peasantry, the armed peasantry, a greater role. Now this is the empirical conclusion they arrive at from Cuban developments, that Cuba has been able to resolve the problem of the need for a Marxist party for the creation of a healthy worker state. The Marxist party is to be added two years later. From above, organized from above. This concept to me is the fundamental essence of it. It's upon this that the whole structure of the majority position rests. And to me this concept is fundamentally wrong.

The only evidence that can be cited to uphold this position is the fact that in the postwar world we have seen an expansion of Stalinism, of countries whose essential identity is the same as that of the Soviet Union. This has occurred in two ways. First, in an area where the Soviet Union directly had military and political hegemony, in Eastern Europe, these areas were structurally transformed into essentially the same type of society as exists in the Soviet Union, that is, worker states, but deformed worker states, as we call them. It has also occurred in Yugoslavia and China and now to some extent in Cuba. We see a similar process under conditions where the direct role of the Soviet Union is nowhere near as great. It varied from country to country, but always under conditions, at least in Yugoslavia and China, where the Stalinist party was in the dominant position in the country, where the country carried through its transformation in direct collaboration and control and support with the Soviet Union, and where the end result was the incorporation of this region into the Soviet orbit.

To me, to the extent that China becomes a worker state in any other way than through a genuine Marxist revolutionary party, the working class itself coming to power, it will be along this road. To me, it is no accident that Cuba has been evolving in this direction, that Stalinist ideology has grown in Cuba. That Fidel's speech, for instance, on Marxism-Leninism, which Joe has challenged me to comment on, has no concept in it at all of workers' democracy. Not one word. Not one word in it of proletarian forms of rule. You can read it. I've read every word of it. You find me the words "proletarian forms of rule." It has the Stalinist concept in it of one-party rule, period, substituting itself for the class. And that one party is to be chosen from above through a selective process of the leading top committees choosing and selecting all the lower committees. It hasn't even yet held a congress.

So to me this is the essential problem that we face, the essential theoretical problem: that on the basis of a certain interpretation of Cuban development, the comrades have now come up with a theoretical conclusion which, if it is true, and it may be true, we'll investigate it, it means the end of Trotskyism [?]. If consciousness, if the Marxist party is no longer an essential ingredient to the establishment of a worker's state in at least a large section of the world, in the first place I think it is dubious that you're going to be able to prevent the expression of this concept in other parts of the world. If this is so, then it puts a big question mark over the need of consciousness itself, the need of Marxism itself, the need of Marxist theory and the need of the Marxist party. And I do not think that these events justify that, because in Yugoslavia and in China, while these countries were transformed into worker states, the problem of the need for the Marxist leadership still remains, does it not? That is why we pose the question of political revolution in Yugoslavia and China. And is Cuba not to follow that pattern, to the extent that it too becomes a worker state, becomes incorporated into the Soviet orbit without genuine rule by the working class through its party and through its institutions? Will that also happen to Cuba? Should we immediately, as impressionists, reject that as a possibility and come up with a whole new theory that now anything goes, that you recreate the parties now two years after the revolution, that you do not need a Marxist leadership in the one-third, or what is it, maybe even more than one-third of the world that is under colonial rule?

The subjective factor

So that, to me, is the essential question posed before us. Now, all these other questions are related to this fundamental question of method. This whole argument over subjectivism versus objectivism and all that is posed completely in the wrong way. The problem is not whether or not you're to emphasize objective factors or emphasize subjective factors. The problem is whether or not you're to have an outlook which interrelates the two, that consciously interrelates the two. Whether you're going to look at the world from on high as an observer, which does not intervene in events, just comments on them, sees this automatic process going on, or whether you're going to intervene as an active participant in history. That's what it means.

This question about the critical nature of the subjective element, I'll state it clearly and boldly, and if one of the comrades wants to take me up on it, challenge me on it: I say that when the objective conditions are ripe for revolution, the subjective factor becomes the most important objective condition for the victory of the revolution. Very simple concept. That is, when you're in a revolutionary period, the struggle is decided by the relative consciousness, organization, and experience of the contending classes, both the capitalists and the working class. That's the most fundamental concept of Marxism. That is the way we've always analyzed historical events. That isn't denying the objective element. It's not saying which is primary or not, but recognizing that the subjective factor is one of the most important objective conditions for the victory of the revolution. What we've always said: you need a party, you need a leadership. The class itself must be conscious of its task. And if it is not conscious of its task, capitalism isn't going to collapse automatically.

Trotsky has said many times, one of his most profound ideas, which he repeated over and over again, especially in the disputes in the early days of the Third International, there is no impossible situation for capitalism. If the class isn't ready, the class isn't conscious, capitalism will figure a way out of the situation. It can get out of any situation as long as the class itself, the working class, isn't conscious, isn't organized. And this is why the whole weight of capitalism is against the organization of the working class, against its consciousness, and especially against its Marxist vanguard. The most important idea, we cannot slur over that. We cannot look upon the subjective factor as an automatic process, automatic product. It'll just come along, why worry about it? You know, capitalism is falling apart and it'll throw up the necessary leadership. No, it's a conscious process, and we must approach it in an active way. The central question of objectivism and subjectivism is whether we're going to take an active intervention in things or whether we're going to be commentators. We're going to sit here in the United States and see the colonial revolution taking care of itself, unfolding. And all we have to do is pick which guy to support. We may make some mistakes there. In fact, the comrades already have made some mistakes there. We will get to that under Algeria. But maybe you'll even pick a couple of guys that come out on top.

The world relationship of forces

Essentially this is the essential problem of the world relationship of forces. It's the same thing, except here the comrades, what has happened is this. I think you cannot read the international resolution or the majority statement before this National Committee without coming to the conclusion that on the question of world relationship of forces the document is completely and utterly eclectic. And people know why. Originally, the international resolution gave very little weight to the role of the advanced countries and was permeated with this concept that the relationship of forces in the world was now totally on the side of revolution and of socialism. It's a process, therefore, just merely unfolding under the weight of the revolutionary tide. And under criticism the opposite concept was put into the document. So you can find both concepts. I can read you all the quotes you want from your own document saying that the world relationship of forces is now in favor of socialism. Now, furthermore, show how this concept is applied. So the least that you should do is try to amend your document and make it consistent and make up your mind which you hold.

The problem is, when it gets down to concrete analysis, at least in the colonial sphere, the analysis flows from a concept that we are in a new period, a new world reality, that the forces of socialism are so strong today that it is possible to do without the Marxist party. Or it says right here: "The Cuban experience demonstrates once again that the ultimate determinant in the outbreak, course, and outcome of a revolutionary struggle is the relationship of class forces on a national and world scale, and not the subjective political factors alone. In this period of the ascendance of the world revolution, Cuba has provided positive proof of a lesson illustrated in a negative way during the previous period of world reaction." And that is that the period of ascendance of world revolutionary forces has so changed that today you do not need the Marxist party, that these pressures will just push everything aside.

This is essentially Pablo's concept of the new world reality, which he posed in 1948, 1949. And if Comrade Hansen is going to give historical credit, he ought to give it to that period. He ought to accuse the SLL of being revisionist because they're breaking from Pablo's concept of the new world reality in 1949. And he also should get up here and admit that the party made a revisionist mistake in 1953 in attacking Pablo for this correct Trotskyist concept, because that was one of the central bases of the split in 1953.

A new period in the advanced countries

Now, what is the world relationship of forces? What is it? This is an extremely important thing, for this reason. In my opinion, we are entering into very much a new period in history. For the first time, I think, in the postwar period, certainly in the post-'48 postwar period, in my opinion we have seen a very significant pickup in the class struggle in the advanced countries. This is a very important thing. The reasons we all pretty well know, and that is that capitalism in Europe and the United States and in Japan is entering into a real period of crisis. This crisis is expressed in the necessity of the capitalists to maintain their profits through putting the pressure on the working class and extracting the profits from the working class, which has led to the Belgium general strike, this whole series of strikes and mass actions in France, to the pay pause struggles in England, and in this country is having its effect with the beginning of strike actions, the first time in several years that there's been case after case in local unions of the rank and file voting down the international leadership and local leadership and going out on strike, and these types of issues.

So what we are actually seeing is a very favorable development in the international scene for the rebuilding of our world movement. However, what we are seeing is not the creation of a new world relationship of forces in the abstract which will make the party and the class unnecessary in the colonial world, but rather the creation of the conditions for the development and the building of the party among the working class in the advanced countries as well as elsewhere. And this is to me the extremely important thing. For instance, the document is loaded with concepts about overcoming the passivity of the working class and all that, which just isn't true. It doesn't fit the reality today. The advanced workers aren't passive. It's the leadership of the advanced workers which is passive. You cannot characterize the British workers as passive, the French workers as passive. Even the German workers, who you might be able to characterize as passive, are beginning to change. I would not characterize the American working class as passive today. Not at all. You may have been able to maintain that to some extent a couple of years ago, but the world is changing. And it is this change which must be dealt with now. This change, by the way, has already affected the international discussion.

Why is it that the British comrades have come forward in the international movement as those who are most concerned about the role of the working class, most concerned about the role of the party? Why? Because they've built a party, an effective party of young workers, of fresh new workers. Why have they been able to build it? They have been able to build it not only because they have a correct political program, a correct outlook, but because the objective conditions have changed in the advanced countries. Why is it that the American party resists this a bit? Well, for one reason, the objective conditions in this country very much trail those in Britain. It is not as clear to the Socialist Workers Party the role that the working class can play in this country. Comrades tend to be looking to other ways, other solutions to problems. Therefore the whole outlook of a party becomes wrapped up in other countries rather than in the working class of our own country. It's a relationship there that cannot be denied.

It's happening throughout the whole world. What is happening is that essentially the sections of the International Committee, and not the International Secretariat, just nothing but little groups in Europe, sections of the International Committee have shown substantial growth over the last few years. This growth is a reflection of a policy which concentrates on the extreme importance of the working class in the advanced countries and the creation of the Trotskyist party in these countries. The dispute with Pablo has been decisively resolved in concrete reality by the growth of the International Committee sections in Japan, in England, in other countries, in Latin America, on the basis of a working-class outlook and program. The Pabloites have nothing in the working class in Europe. That is not their outlook. That is not where they are looking. They are looking in Europe for the same type of forces that the party is now looking around in Latin America for.

The Belgian general strike as the test of Pabloism

Which gets me to the central test of the question of Pabloism. I'm going to have to discuss it in the abstract. It's very, very concretely posed in a single event. You can mention many examples, but in one single event, and our movement has to make a decision on this event, and that was the Belgium general strike. We've got to come to the conclusion whether the Pabloites were right or wrong there, for a very clear reason, because it relates to whether or not the Pabloite approach toward building a movement in the advanced countries is correct or incorrect, and is a test of whether or not the Pabloites are in reality carrying out a Trotskyist outlook and program. What happened in the Belgian general strike? Essentially the same thing happened in the Belgian general strike as happened in the French general strike, which was one of the main political reasons given for the Open Letter and the split in 1953. The Pabloites played the identical role today as they played in 1953, and they will play in all these events.

Essentially it was this. The Pabloites, who had not inconsiderable forces for our movement, with a considerable amount of influence in Belgium, approached the Belgian general strike by limiting themselves only to partial political demands, never once raising the question of power itself, a question which was raised by the Belgian workers by their actions. They did not propose, did not push for the question of workers' power, a workers' and farmers' government, of the necessity to carry through this transformation to solve these problems. Germain openly admitted to us that they limited their demands. I can quote him on the Political Committee. He said they limited their demands to demands acceptable to the present leadership of the strike. They did not demand anything that would not be accepted by Renard and the rest of the leadership of the Belgian strike. They therefore played the role of critical supporters to the centrist leadership of the strike, not seeking to create an alternative leadership to that strike.

This is identical to what the Pabloites did in 1953 in the French general strike, where they limited their demands to what would be acceptable to the CGT and the Communist Party leadership of that strike. And where, in fact, Pablo [?] in 1953 played a more open role, and a role that could be more defended than Germain. Because everything Germain did, he did within the framework of a centrist creation, which was his own front group, La Gauche [?]. Never once did he play an independent role in all those developments. Only under one of his innumerable names he wrote articles in La Gauche [?], and then he wrote articles commenting on the articles he wrote in La Gauche [?] under another name, in the French paper, and then under a third name he analyzed it in the Fourth International. Under a fourth name he wrote on it in another journal, since he is one of the favored correspondents of this whole circle of New Left people in Europe. Germain, today one of the top leaders, with Pablo in relative exile, I hope, one of the top leaders of the IS. So essentially the same identical role.

Furthermore, they not only did not play an alternative role to put forward an alternative militant leadership in the trade union movement, they couldn't. Because their policy is not based on building a rank-and-file movement in the trade unions. That's not Germain's policy. What does he know about that? It's not the nature of his group. That's not the nature of any of the Pabloite groups in all of Europe. He was so completely up in these centrist circles in his own offices. It was inflated because they had a big meeting for Jean-Paul Sartre recently under another name, of course, and so on and so on. This is the way they function, the way they try to build a movement. It's not the way the Japanese comrades try to build a movement. It's not the way the British comrades try to build a movement. It's not the way the RIC [?], Latin American comrades, the Chileans, even the Argentines. They have weaknesses. We've attacked them. But the Argentine weaknesses are weaknesses of a working-class tendency, that at least deeply involved with trade unions will make an opportunist mistake. At least they're in the class. These people are floating around. These are the people you want to see us unite with. Their only real conquest, so to speak, since 1953, is the development of a Latin American section, which is split from them. So we should unite with these guys and break our relations with the British, who are the only ones that have proved themselves capable of building a real movement of workers in England, in any of the advanced countries, the most major achievement of the period.

Is their growth into a substantial section, when no other section was able to do it in this period, unrelated to their political outlook? Is it unrelated? Is there no relationship to it at all? Just a mere coincidence that the healthiest section of the International with real roots in the class, and anyone will testify to that, anyone, was created by the party which has been the hardest in the struggle against Pabloism? A bunch of sectarians, you call them. You should see their roots in the working class. Are they sectarian in the trade union movement? You can't build that way. You can't build a party of that size in such a small thing. Were they sectarian, winning over these Communist Party militants? You can't build that way. So in reality the question of Pabloism has already been solved by history. It's been empirically solved. I'm presenting it this way. We have difficulties here on method. At least I can show you something empirically here. So that, to me, has to be resolved.

Two questions for the party

Now there's another question that you have to face up to. Here again, I'll try. I've answered some questions here. In my summary, any more questions come, I want to ask, especially embarrassing questions. Just sit there and think of the most embarrassing questions. What do they really think of so-and-so's theory? I mean, what is their nefarious [?] flock with nefarious [?] flocks? Think of the real dirty questions, and I'll answer them, every one of them. You count me on it, you know. And if there's anyone I want you to get up and say I don't, I want to ask them questions, and I want some answers. I want them answered. Is that fair? Fair, Tom? Okay. All right. Two questions, only two questions.

One. In the majority political statement, on the question of deep entrism, the party has an extremely ambiguous statement. It essentially defines as the criterion for entry work precisely the criterion established by Pablo as early as 1951, as far as I know. Pablo favors an independent publication at all times. He's always for the ultimate creation of a mass revolutionary party. The real question of entrism is very clearly stated, even recently, in one of the letters before the last convention by Jim Cannon, where he says, "They seem to be spelling out their liquidationist policy of deep entry more precisely than ever before, so as to assign future leadership indefinitely to different centrist and Stalinist formations." Well, this is the reality of deep entrism: the tactic of entering these parties, Stalinist and social democratic parties, in such a way as to adapt to centrist currents within it, to subordinate yourself to that, with the aim of creating some mass left wing, some mass centrist breakoff.

This is what Germain said to our Political Committee. He went on for 15 minutes, described exactly and clearly what his policy was, which he said his whole policy in Belgium was to try to create a mass left wing, which would then break from the right wing and then maybe would evolve, God knows how many generations later, into a mass revolutionary party. That's deep entrism. It was from that point of view that led the Pabloites to their line in the Belgium general strike. Essentially adaptation to the existing trade union leadership and social democratic leadership led them to a role of functioning within these centrist forms and so on. Now in England, deep entrism of the Pabloites has led them to a vicious attack on the organization of the SLL, which our party went on record opposed to, not only opposed to the attack but opposed to it because it was wrong politically and flowed from an adaptationist attitude toward centrist circles in the Labour Party.

Is our policy to create an alternative leadership in these parties and in the trade union movement at all times, or is our policy to enter into these in order to transform the centrists and therefore to adapt to the centrist group? It was this way that the question was posed, as I said, especially, I would say, because I was extremely concerned with this question, by Jim Cannon in his letter just before the last convention. And I could take that out. I could also get a very similar quote in the letter that the party wrote to the SLL [?] in February last year, too. I want to know what's your opinion on that. And if you feel, as I do, that this is an incorrect policy, perhaps we can get a little greater clarity if that section of the resolution was clarified so that it was specific. The Pabloites are always great ones for fulfilling the forms of an independent organ. They never say anything in the independent organ, especially they don't say anything which in any way relates to what goes on inside these parties. But they all print the independent organ. They've always been for mass revolutionary parties. I mean, who isn't, you know? Yet they don't do anything about it.

Secondly, what I want to know is what is the attitude of the party today, or of the comrades here in general, toward the policy of deep entrism as practiced currently by the Pabloites in Europe? This practice being expressed concretely through their actions in the Belgian general strike and their attack on the formation of the British Socialist Labour League. Policies which, in my opinion, are essentially ones which assign a revolutionary role to centrist circles, which they adapt to. The concept, rather than playing an independent role, aimed primarily at creating an alternative leadership in the union as well as in the party.

Second question. I am unclear from this document, as well as from other things written, what the position of the party is today on the question of the political revolution. I'm not raising the question of whether you are for or against it, because I know only Swabeck is against the political revolution, and the people who support him, and that for China. But what I want to know is what you mean by it. What precisely do the words "process of destalinization" mean for Europe, for Eastern Europe, the Stalinist countries? Secondly, in the recent ISR, Comrades Weiss and Dex [?] declared that they consider it to be quite possible for Mao to be transformed into a Trotskyist. I can get the quote. If there's any question or formulation, I can get you the quote on this. I want to know whether this is party policy, whether it's party policy that this section of the Stalinist bureaucracy can be transformed by a process of self-reform under pressure from the masses. Comrades Weiss and Dex [?], would you like a quote? Well, you don't need it. You'll agree with it. Okay. Give me one second.