The stakes in the debate on C. America

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The following is an edited version of the resolution, "The Stakes in the Central America Discussion," adopted by the first national convention of Socialist Action in November 1984.

Some of the most dramatic and important events for revolutionaries today are occurring in Central America.

In Nicaragua, a revolutionary government has taken power. It has taken steps which run counter to the interests of imperialism and the native ruling classes. These steps have sparked the sharp antagonism of these reactionary forces, who understand the real threat presented by this revolutionary process-the potential for the complete expropriation of capitalist economic interests.

The revolutionaries leading these events represent the growth and development of the Castroist current. The roots and ideology of that current can be traced back to the Cuban revolution and its impact throughout Latin America.

Despite the important achievements in action of this current in the Central "There is no road to national liberation short of socialism."

American revolution, we must also acknowledge that the weaknesses of Castroism can be seen within these struggles. These weaknesses take the form of serious theoretical and programmatic gaps and errors (for example on the nature of Stalinism or the role of the neocolonial capitalist class) which result from the specific historical conditions in which the Cuban revolution took place.

The clash in Nicaragua between the masses led by the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), on the one hand, and the old ruling classes and their supporters, on the other, is becoming sharper and sharper. It has reached the stage of a major armed invasion by counterrevolutionaries backed by U.S. imperialism.

A decisive showdown is shaping up that must end either in the overthrow of the still dominant economic power of the capitalists and the creation of a workers' state resting on nationalized property, or in the defeat of the revolution.

This is the question of permanent revolution as it has always been understood by the world Trotskyist movement. In the age of imperialism there can be no road to national liberation except through a process of workers' revolution—of socialist revolution.

The revolution taking place today in Central America is, and will on an increasing scale, have an extraordinary impact on the coming American and world socialist revolution. Our discussion in Socialist Action takes place within the framework of our unconditional support to the revolutionary workers and peasants and their organizational expressions in Central America.

We are unconditionally in support of a military victory by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and by the FSLN in Nicaragua against the internal and external forces of world capitalism and its most virulent and potent agency, U.S. imperialism. And, of course, we support every forward step by the Sandinista revolutionary government against capitalist power and toward a workers' state in Nicaragua.

A heterogeneous current We must begin with an important fact in our approach to the leading forces in the Central American revolu12 SOCIALIST ACTION A supporter of the FSLN in Nicaragua tion. They do not constitute a single monolith.

The largest and most influential component, it is true, is made up of forces that have modeled themselves politically on the profoundly revolutionary practice of the Castroist leaders of the Cuban revolution. These revolutionists of action, therefore, encourage the greatest optimism regarding the outcome of the current stage in the world struggle for workers' power and socialism.

But it is no less true that among the ranks of the revolutionists of action in Central America are the traditional representatives of political betrayal in the shape of the Stalinist and social democratic class-collaborationist currents. These forces are working vigorously to contain the revolution within capitalist limits.

Although a small minority within the revolutionary camp, the influence of Stalinism and the social democracy is amplified with the considerable assistance of the Stalinist bureaucracy at the helm of the Soviet Union-not to mention the social-democratic agencies of capitalist governments in Western Europe and the Americas.

These class-collaborationist forces have recently succeeded in driving the Salvadoran FMLN to the right with the adoption of the "peace plan," the Government of Broad Participation (GAP). But even so, our optimism is bolstered by new evidence of growing resistance to this program within the FMLN and among revolutionary forces who have been undemocratically excluded from the FMLN.

Ruben Zamora, a principal leader of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (the conservative political arm of the FMLN), has been compelled to defend the "GAP" against mounting opposition within the fighting forces of the revolution in El Salvador. Zamora clearly establishes the strategic—not tactical-character of the "GAP" in an interview reprinted in the Oct. 29, 1984, issue of Intercontinental Press Inprecor.

We would do a terrible disservice to the revolution were we to be silent regarding the ideological struggle that has erupted within the Salvadoran revolutionary movement.

We would make the biggest mistake if we were to adapt passively to the political line of the revolutionary forces in Central America today-particularly those who are advocating the "GAP." tion to participate in this ideological struggle.

As Leon Trotsky noted, "One does not demonstrate one's friendship for a revolutionary organization in a difficult situation by closing one's eyes to its mistakes and the dangers arising from them."

This was the cardinal error made by the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Some of us warned, during the 1981 SWP convention discussion, that the SWP was in danger of following the logic of their adaptation to Castroism and would ultimately be led to break with Trotskyism, the Permanent Revolution, the Transitional Program, and with the Fourth International (Fl).

We are not happy that this fear has been to a great extent confirmed by the SWP's subsequent evolution. [See articles on the SWP in this supplement.)

New conceptions While we are confident that the Fourth International (Fl), unlike the SWP in the grip of the Barnes faction, is completely capable of regaining its balance, the United Secretariat (USec) majority is showing evidence of a similar course toward adaptation.

Two of the most recent USec majority resolutions, "The Report on the Present Stage of Building the International" and "The Central American Revolution," show evidence of a dangerous trend toward rationalizing and adapting to erroneous strategic conceptions held by the currently dominant wings of the revolutionary forces in Central America and the Caribbean. [See excerpts in this supplement from FI leader Daniel Bensaid's recent interview in International Viewpoint expressing some of these new conceptions.] The following are five major points where the USec resolutions depart from the historic positions adopted by our world movement over many decades.

1) The USec majority resolutions defend the "GAP" in El Salvador on "tactical" grounds. In its resolution, "The Central American Revolution," the USec majority states:

"The objective [of the "GAP"] is to give this movement, starting from its reality, a dynamic of political confrontation with the practical policies of the present government. To do this it has to be offered an overall perspective which links democratic, anti-imperialist, and immediate economic demands. That is the way to throw off balance the leaderships of the popular organizations who want to subordinate the activity of the masses to the needs of the regime."

And the USec authors conclude: The "GAP" platform can have this effect."

The USec majority, however, dismisses the fact that the FDR/FMLN "peace plan" proposes to achieve these demands by a coalition government "in which no single sector will have control" and backed by an army resulting from the fusion of the FMLN forces and a purged Salvadoran army.

Socialist Action supports the right of the Salvadoran revolutionists to negotiate with Duarte or whomever. But as revolutionists, we cannot take part in misleading workers by giving political support to a program that calls for the merger of the two armies and that clearly commits itself to the preservation of capitalism in El Salvador.

Even if the capitalists do not consider it necessary at this time to resort to the "GAP" (they feel that Duarte may do the job and therefore would only turn to the popular front as their last card against the advancing revolu(continued on page 13)

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Salvadoran workers build barricade on highway in Usulutan.

(continued from page 12) tion), it is wrong to give political support to a program of class collaboration.

2) The USec resolutions reverse their previous positions and now support programmatic, electoral, and governmental alliances with so-called minor capitalist forces on the grounds that the worker and peasant components have "hegemony."

In a footnote to the USec resolution on Central America, the USec majority states its support for the FSLN policy "We remain convinced of the need for the Fl in every country."

of alliances with the capitalist class in the National Patriotic Front (FPN), a front which was formed in early 1979.

In a major self-criticism of the position it held for five years, the USec majority states that the FSLN's "actions [in alliance with the capitalists] were incorrectly grasped (problem of hegemony) and were not situated in the context of the battle for 'national unity against Somoza' in the sense understood by the FSLN. "

3) The USec resolutions overturn their own analyses of the phases of the Nicaraguan revolution which had up to the adoption of the new positions-for five years-correctly maintained that the revolution had yet to establish a workers' state.

The USec resolution on Central America now states that Nicaragua became a workers' state in July 1979, at the time the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown.

This momentous revision of the USec's previous analysis is offered without any attempt at a serious explanation, except in the footnote cited above.

The previous Fl resolutions called for the completion of the agrarian reform, the establishment of soviet forms of workers' rule, workers' control, and the resolution of the "mixed economy," i.e. the overthrow of the partially dismantled capitalist state.

By reversing its positions, the Fl is now rationalizing the non-completion of these tasks on the ground that the workers' state existed in Nicaragua from the outset. This method, at the very least, throws into question the applicability of the Transitional Program to the Central American revolution.

If adopted, the new USec majority positions would obviate the reason for the existence of sections of the Fl in Central America.

For our part, we remain convinced of the need to build and strengthen the Fl in every country of the world on the basis of our historic program. We have something to say in Nicaragua on the basis of our program and heritage concerning the mixed economy, workers' democracy, and proletarian internationalism.

But to advance these ideas, we need an independent expression of the Fl in Nicaragua, Cuba, and El Salvador-whatever the tactical considerations involved in organizing supporters of the Fl in these countries.

4) Another even more important mistake in the USec resolutions lies in their generalization of the Nicaraguan FSLN's policy of class alliances to other countries.

Whereas in the past the USec majority saw the FSLN's policy of alliance with the bourgeoisie in the FPN as an obstacle and danger to the revolution, it has now concluded that this policy of class alliances with the bourgeoisie was correct and must be extended to other countries as well.

The USec majority also says that the Nicaraguan revolution triumphed without the need of a party of the Fourth International-a heterogeneous revolutionary front was sufficient-and so it questions whether or not it is still necessary to build the Fourth International in Central America.

As in other postwar revolutions, the USec majority fails to see that the revolutionary movement of the masses broke through the barrier erected by the, alliance with the capitalists. That the masses overcame this obstacle without the benefit and need of the revolutionary party is due to the exceptional decay and decomposition of imperialism and its comprador capitalist class which have prepared the ground for the revolutions following World War II.

What the USec resolutions fail to see-and hence the danger of "generalizing"—is that such alliances will prove to be an insurmountable obstacle in countries with stronger and broader-based national bourgeoisies. And this obstacle will be compounded unless the revolutionary party is built on the clearest possible political program-the program of the Fourth International. Only this program can mobilize the full power of the oppressed and exploited masses.

The fitst extension by the USec majority of the FSLN's policy of class alliances was its political support to the Izquierda Unida (Left Unity) in Peru and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) in Uruguay. Both are clearly popular-front formations.

Claiming that the FSLN had "hegemony" in the new government that took power after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, the USec encouraged its sections to follow the Nicaraguan "model" and join the Izquierda Unida and the Frente Amplio in order to seek to gain "revolutionary hegemony" within these fronts.

The USec resolutions-overturning the historic position of the Fl-now support participation in these multi-class formations organized on a capitalist programmatic foundation, for the alleged purpose of gaining a better hearing and "to help determine whether it [the Izquierda Unida] becomes a reformist front that holds back the mass movement or a revolutionary front that pushes the process forward" (Hugo Blanco, "Left Unity and 'Sendero Luminoso, " Intercontinental Press, March 19, 1984). [See articles on Peru in this supplement.] This policy of the Blanco-led majority of the Peruvian Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) in joining the Izquierda Unida popular front-type electoral alliance has been endorsed by the USec majority resolutions.

For revolutionists loyal to the program of the Fourth International, seeking , "hegemony" within a programmatic coalition with sectors of the class enemy is impermissible.

5) In the same footnote to its resolution on Central America, the USec majority overthrows its theoretical analysis of the Algerian Ben Bella government of the early 1960s. This government had been correctly characterized as a workers' and farmers' government, but not yet a workers' state. Now the USec majority claims that the Ben Bella government never broke with the bourgeoisie at the governmental level.

In fact, the USec majority rejects the "validity of a characterization which combines workers' and peasants' government and capitalist state."

And in so doing it also rejects the Fl's historic analysis of the Cuban revolution.

We believe these mistakes can be corrected and our world movement stopped from following the logic of these revisions to its ultimate conclusion. Toward this end, we wish to point to the theoretical questions at the root of the current dispute.

A frank and sharply clear statement of the problem is indispensable. False diplomacy that gets in the way of clarifying differences is harmful and would be a major departure from our tradition of comradely but uncompromising political argument.

The roots of the dispute Our discussion has revealed a vast confusion concerning basic programmatic positions within the Fourth International. It concerns, among other things, a confusion between the workers' united front and the anti-imperialist united front, on one side, and the Harry Mattison popular front, on the other.

The workers' united front is based on unity for objectively anticapitalist action by mass workers' organizations. It must not rule out the right of each component to advocate its full program and the right to mutual criticism at the same time that united anticapitalist action is organized and carried out. The aim of the united front is to unite in action mass organizations led by contending political currents.

The united front, therefore, can only be set into motion on the basis of one, or at most a few issues. To achieve a broader-based, anticapitalist programmatic coalition is unrealistic. The more issues included as the basis for common action, the less is the possibility for politically divided mass organizations to unite.

The anti-imperialist united front is the application of the united front to underdeveloped countries, where the tasks of the democratic revolution have pressing urgency and thus, alliances with capitalists are not excluded.

But such alliances must be restricted exclusively for the purpose of carrying out joint action for specific and limited aims. It should go without saying that a sharp programmatic and organizational differentiation is essential between the workers and their momentary capitalist allies.

Neither the workers' united front nor the anti-imperialist united front can be based on a program that includes the defense of capitalist property rights. This is a class-collaborationist programmatic alliance-better known in the hands of counterrevolutionary Stalinists and social democrats as the popular front.

Nowhere in the historic programmatic positions adopted by the American or world Trotskyist movement is there even a hint that support or participation in a capitalist programmatic alliance, electoral coalition, or governmental formation that includes the capitalist class is within the bounds of principle-even with "insignificant representatives" or "shadows" of the capitalist class.

The principle of working class political independence has been affirmed and reaffirmed on numerous occasions in programmatic documents like the "Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution" and in shelves of writing on this question by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky-to name only the most prominent authors.

Anti-imperialist united front

The Third International under Lenin and Trotsky first advanced the tactic of the anti-imperialist united front:

"Just as in the West the slogan of the workers "united front has helped and is helping to expose the social democrats' sell-out of proletarian interests, so the slogan of the anti-imperialist united front will help to expose the vacillations of the various bourgeois national groups....

"The colonial revolution can triumph and defend its gains only if accompanied by a proletarian revolution in the advanced countries" (Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Communist International, pp. 415-416).

Nowhere in these "Theses," nor in any writings by Lenin and Trotsky, nor in any line documents of the SWP or Fl (until now), is there any statement, hint, or suggestion that a programmatic alliance with any sector of the capitalist class is permissible in a colonial or semicolonial country.

On the contrary, the same principle of working class political independence from the capitalists (in this case the national capitalist class) applies with equal force in this arena of the world class struggle.

Limited unity in action with sectors of the national capitalist class against imperialism is permissible, but always under separate programmatic banners-never under the banner of the class enemy.

In reaffirming our historical position on class alliances, we also reaffirm the theoretical conquests (currently being challenged) regarding the workers' and farmers' government as a transitional slogan in the struggle for the workers' state and as a theoretical link "We stand on the line explaining the transition from capitalism to the workers' state.

We stand on the general line defended in "Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution" by Joseph Hansen, which is an outstanding example of the application and refinement of the theory of permanent revolution and which clearly establishes the revolutionary-Marxist criteria for determining the class character of the state now being challenged from inside our world IN OCTOBER 1985 13

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Interview with Fourth International leader:

The following are excerpts from an interview with Daniel Bensaid, a leader of the Fourth International and of its French section, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR).

This interview on the meaning of the 12th World Congress of the Fourth International, first appeared

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:388 con el Frente.

mos de tre Wendy Watriss

put forward by Joseph Hansen."