THE CALL FOR A WOI Corintern Theses

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The call for a workers government (eventually a government of the peasants as well) should be raised everywhere as a general propaganda slogan. But as a slogan of present-day political activity the call for a workers government takes on its greatest importance in countries where the situation of bourgeois society is particularly unstable, where the relationship of forces between the workers partics and the bourgeoisie puts on the agenda, as a politica necessity, the solution to the questión of a workers government.

In these countries the slogan of a "workers government is an inevitable consequence of the entire united-front tactic.

The parties of the Second International are secking to "save" the day in these countries by calling for and forming coalitions between the bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats.

In their most recent attempts to do this certain parties of the Second Inter. national (in Germany, for example) refused to participate openly in a coalition government of this sort in order to bring it into being in a disguised fashion. This was no more than a manoeuvre intended to calm the masses who were protesting against such coalitions; it was no more than a sophisticated swindle of the working masses.

To the coalition between the bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats, whether it be open or concealed the Communists counterpose the united front of all workers and the political and economic. coalition of all workers parties against bourgeois power in order to overthrow the latter once and for all.

In the common struggle of all these workers against the bourgeoisie, the entire state apparatus must fall into the hands of the workers government, and in this way the position of the working class will be strengthened.

The most elementary programme of a workers government must consist in arming the proletariat, disarming the counter-revolutionary bourgeois organisations, installing suppervision over production, insuring that the main burden of taxation falls on the rich, and smashing the resistance of the bourgeois counterrevolution.

A government of this sort is only possible if it emerges from.

the struggle of the masses themselves, it it is based on working class organisations that are suited for combat and formed by the broadest layers of the oppressed working masses.

A workers government resulting from a parliamentary combination may also provide an opportunity for strengthening the revolutionary workers movement. But it goes without saying that the emergence of a genuine workers government and the continued existence of-a government carrying out a revolutionary policy must lead to a fierce struggle and, eventually, to a civil war with the bourgeoisic.

The proletariat's mere attempt to form a workers government will immediately encounter the most violent resis. tance on the part of the bourgeoisie. The slogan of a workers' government is therefore capable ot giving a focus to and setting off revolutionary struggles.

In certain circumstances, Communists should declare that they are prepared to form a government with workers parties and organisations that are non-Communist.

But they can take such an action only when guarantees are given that these workers govern ments will really carry out a struggle against the bourgeoisie in the sense indicated above. In this case, the normal conditions for Communists participation in such government would be the following:

Labour leader Henderson 1) Participation in a workers government can take place only with the approval of the Communist International;

2) The Communist members of a workers government remain under the strictest control of their party;

3) The Communist members of a workers government remain in direct contact with the revol utionary organisations of the masses;

4) The Communist Party has the absolute right to maintain its publie identity and retains complete independence of agitation.

Despite its great advantages the slogan of a workers govern ment also has its dangers just as any united front tactic has.

As a precaution against these dangers, the Communist parties should not lose sight of the fact that, although every bourgeois.

government is at the same time a capitalist government, it is not true that every workers govern ment is actually proletarian, mat is, a revolutionary instrument of proictarian power.

The Communist International should anticipate the follow! ing possibilities:

1) A liberal workers government. There is already a government of this sort in Australia; there may also be one before very long in England.

2) A Social-Democratic workers government (Germany).

3) A workers and peasants government. This is possible in the Balkans, Czechosiovakia, etc.

4) A workers government in which Communists participate.

S) A genuine proletarian workers government which, in its purest form, can only be represented by a Communist The first two types of workers governments are not revolutionary workers governments, but rather governments that • camouflage a coalition between the bourgeoisie and the counterrevolutionary leaders of the working class.

Workers citoal mend, these are tolerated by a weakened bourgeoisie in order to deceive the proletariat as to the real class character of the state or, with the assistance of corrupt working class leaders, to derail the revolutionary offensive of the proletariat and gain time.

Communists must not participate in such governments. To the contrary, they must relentlessly expose to the masses the Labour leader MacDonald:no every workers government is i socialist government real character of these phony "workers governments In the period of the decline of capitalișm, a period in which the principal task consists in winning a majority of the proletariat over to the revolution, these governments can objectively contribute to accelerating the process of the decomposition of the bourgeois regime.

Communists are prepared to march with workers-Social Democrats, Christians, non-party, syndicalist, etc. -who have not yet recognised the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Under certain circumstances and with certain guarantees, the Communists are equally prepared to support a non-Communist workers government.

But the Communists must at all costs explain to the working class that its liberation can only be assured by the dictatorship of the proletariat:

The other two types of workers governments are types that the Communists can participate in, although they still do not represent the dictatorship of the proletariat; they do not represent a necessary form of transition toward the dictatorship, but they can serve as a point of departure for attaining this dictatorship.

The full dictatorship of the proletariat can only be accomplished by a workers government composed of Communists. Russian Revolution, this will become clear.

As far as l am concerted, the question has nothing to do with the word "pseudonym" which has been quoted here. I am quite willing under these circumstances, to give up the word.

But the main thing is the significance. I think, •comrades, that the question will be made clear if 1 express myself as follows: It is clear to us that every bourgeois government is a capitalist government. It is hard to imagine a bourgeois government-the mule of the bourgeois class-which is not at the same time a capitalist government.

But I fear that one cannot reverse that saying. Every working class government is not a proletarian government; not every workers government is a socialist government.

This contrast is radical. It loreals the fact that the bourgenisie have their outposts within our class, but that workers have not their outposts within the capitalist class. It is impossible for us to have our outposts in the camp of the You can have a workers government which, according to its composition would be a liberal workers government, for example, the Australian Labour| Several of our Australian comrades say that the term workers government is incorrect because in Australia we have had such workers governments of a bourgeois nature.

These were really workers governments, but their composition was of a purely liberal character. They were bourgeois workers governments, if one may so term them.

Let us take another example: The general elections are taking place in England. It is not probable, but one may as well accept in theory, as a possibility, that a workers government will be elected which will be similar to the Australian Labour government, and will be of a liberal composition.

Thus liberal workers government in England can, under certain circumstances, constitute the starting point of revolutionizing the situation.

That could well happen. But by itself, it is nothing more than a liberal workers government.

Lenin

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t, what perspective should socialists offer the working class? Should we simply call' in genera! sur to power on socialist policies"? Or should we not place our critical electoral support fo of the overall strategy of socialist revolution in which the objective is not simply anoth ernment genuinely representative of the working class, a workers' government based firm , organised through councils of action? Only on this basis can such a government take t e raises the demand to bring down the Tories and fight within the labour movement f : we reprint a number of explanations of its significance-from the leaders of Lenin's Comnachinery of the capitalist state.

tional Liaison Committee.

We, the Communists, now vote in England for the Labour Party. That is the same as voting for a liberal workers government. The English Communists are compelled, by the existing situation, to vote for a liberal workers government.

These are absolutely the right tactics. Why? Because this objective would be a step forward; because a liberal governextend quilibrium and would ment in England would disturb extend the bankruptcy of capitalism.

We have seen in Russia during the Kerensky regime how the position of capitalism was smashed, despite the fact that the liberals were the agents of capitalism.

Plekhanov, in the period from February to October, 1917, called the Mensheviks semi-Bolsheviks. We say that this was an exaggeration. They were not semi-Bolsheviks, but just quarter-Bolsheviks.

We said this because we were at war with them, and because we saw their treachery to the proletariat.

Objectively, Plekhanov was right. Objectively the Menshevik government was best adapted to make a hash of capitalism by making its position impossible.

Our party, which was then fighting the Mensheviks, would not and could not see this. The parties stood arrayed for conflict.

Under such conditions, we can only see that they are traitors to the working class. They are not opponents of the bourgeoisie, but when, for a period, they hold the weapons of the bourgeoisie in their hands, they make certain steps which are objectively against the bourgeois state.

Therefore, in England, we support the liberal workers government and the Labour Party. The English bourgeoisie are right when they say that the workers government will start with Clynes and finish in the hands of the left wing.

That is the first type of a possible workers government. The second type is that of a Socialist government. One can imagine that the United Social Democratic Party forms …a purely Socialist government.

That would also be workers government, a Socialist overnment, with the wordsocialist-of course in quotation narks.

One can easily imagine a ituation where we would give uch a government certain conitional credit, a certain conitional support. One can nagine a Socialist government i being a first step in the volutionising of the situation.

A third type is the so-called alition government; that is, a mernment in which Socialamocrats, Trade Union iders and even perhaps Cominists, take part.

One can imagine such a sibility. Such a government not yet the dictatorship of ¡ proletariat, but it is perhaps Zinoviev a starting point for the dictatorship.

When all goes right, we can kick one social democrat after another out of the government unti the power is in the hands of the Communists. This is a historical possibility.

Fourthly, we have a workers government which is really a workers government-that is, a Communist workers government, which is the true workers I believe that this fourth possibility is a pseudonym for dictatorship of the proletariat, that it is truly a workers government in the true sense of the word.

This by no means exhausts the question. There can be a fifth or sixth type, and they can all be excellent starting points for a broader revolutionising of the situation.

But, in order to construct a workers government in the revolutionary sense, one must overthrow the bourgeoisie; and that is the most important.

We must not forget that we have here to distinguish between two things: 1) Our methods of agitation; how we can best speak to the workers, how we can enable them best to understand the position.

For that purpose, I believe the slogan of Workers Government" is best adapted.

2) How will events develop historically, in what concrete forms will the revolution manifest itself?

We must look at the question from all sides. It is nevertheless difficult to make any prediction. If we now look at the slogan of the workers government from this new standpoint, as a concrete road to the realisation of the proletarian revolution, we may doubt whether the world revolution must necessarily pass through the stage of the workers government.

Our friend Radek said yesterday that the workers government is a possible intermediary step to the dictatorship of the proletariat. I agree, it is a possibility, or more exactly an exceptional possibility.

This does not mean that the slogan of the workers government is not good. It is a good instrument of agitation where the relation of forces makes it possible.

But if we put this question: is the workers government a necessary step towards the revolution? I must answer that this is not a question that we can solve here. It is a way, but the least probable of all.

In countries with a highly developed bourgeois class, the proletariat can conquer power by force alone, through civil war. In such a case an intermediary step is not to be thought of.

It might take place, but it is useless to argue here about it.

All that is necessary is that we see clearly all the possible ways towards the revolution.

The workers government may be nothing more than a liberal Labour government, as it might be in England and in Australia. Such a workers government can also be useful to the working class.

The agitation for a workers government is wise, we may gain many advantages therefrom. But in no case must we forget our revolutionary prospects.

This is why I believe that we can adopt the policy of the workers government with a peaceful heart, under the only condition that we do not forget what it really amounts to.

Woe to us if we ever allow the suggestion to creep up in our propaganda that the workers government is a necessary step, to be achieved peacefully as a period of semi-organic construction which may take the place of civil war, etc.

If such views exist among us, we must combat them ruthlessly; we must educate the working class by way of telling them - dear friends, to establish a workers government, the bourgeoisie must be first overthrown and defeated."

The International must adopt the right tactics, but there are no tactics by means of which we could outwit the bourgeoisie and glide smoothly into the realm of the workers The important thing is that we overthrow the bourgeoisie, after which various forms of the workers government may be established..

At each step in the struggle for transitional and democratic demands, Trotskyists must weigh. and consider the best tactical means of conducting the fight in such a way as to expose and discredit the existing treacherous mass leaders of the working class.

Such tactics will generally include fighting for workers to place specific demands on those trade union and political leaders that retain mass support for them to break from their present policies of class collaboration and act in the independent class interests of their members.

As the Transitional Programme shows, the culmination of this approach is the formulation of demands on the reformist, Stalinist and even petty bourgeois nationalist leaders that they break with the bourgeoisie and form a workers (and peasants) government.

The slogan can, as the Transitional Programme shows, be used flexibly as an agitational slogan in particular situations. As such its value is that it focusses the attention of the masses on the class collabora: With regard to the demand for a workers government. A workers government is not the proletarian dictatorship, that is clear; it is one of the possible transitory (transitional] stages to the proletarian dietatorship.

The possibility of such a transitory stage is due to the fact that the working masses in the West are not so amorphous politically as in the East. They are members of parties and they stick to their parties:

In the East, in Russia, it was easier to bring them into the fold of Communism after the outbreak of the revolutionary storm. In your countries it is much more difficult.

The German, Norwegian and Czechoslovakian workers will more readily declare against coalition with the bourgeoisie, preferring a coalition of labour parties which would guarantee the eight hour day and an extra crust of bread, etc.

A workers party usually arises in this manner, either through preliminary struggles or on the basis of a parliamentary combination, and it would be Trotsky tion of their leaders and the necessity for a government that will represent their independent interests. In every instance it is vital to couple the workers' government with the necessary programme transitional demands and with the struggle to mobilise the working class in independent organisations through which it will fight for such demands.

Such an approach is in explicit contrast to the various parliamentary formations passed off by reformist, centrist and Stalinist currents as "workers" or "workers and peasants" governments.

Indeed while the call for a workers government can be used as an agitational slogan to advance the political consciousness of the working class from the level of spontaneity to the comprehension of the necessity of the revolutionary seizure of power, the culmination of the struggle for this demand must be in the final instance-as in Russia in October 1917-be the definitive break with and destruction of the political forms, institutions and state machinery of the bourgeoisie, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

folly to turn aside the opportunities of such a situation in stubborn doctrinaire fashion.

Now the question arisesshall we recline upon this soft cushion and take a good rest, or shall we rather lead the masses into the fight on the basis of their own illusions for the realis ation of the programme of a workers government?

If we conceive the workers government as a soft cushion we are ourselves " politically beaten. We would then take our place beside the social-democrats as a new type of tricksters.

On the other hand, if we keep alive the consciousness of the masses that „a workers government is an empty shell unless it has workers behind it forging their weapons and forming their factory councils to compel it to hold on to the right track and make no compromise to the right, making that government a starting point for the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship, such a workers government will eventually make room for a Soviet government and not become a soft cushion, but rather a léver for the conquest of power by revolutionary means.

I believe one of the comrades has said, "The workers government is not a historic necessity but a historical possiblity" . This is, to my mind, a correct formula.

It would be absolutely wrong to assert that the development of man from the ape to a People's Commissar must necessarily pass through.

the phase of a workers government. (Laughter.)

Such a variant in history is possible, and in the first place it is possible in a number of countries having a strong proletarian and peasant movement, or where the working class overwhelmingly outnumber the bourgeoisie, as is the case in England.

CG The workers government slogan thus contains within it the dynamic of the class struggle in which the working class, gaining in strength and self confidence, demands increasingly more of its bureaucratic mass leaders to the point where they insist that these leaders break from the bourgeoisie,, take power in their own hands, and implement measures in the interests of the proletariat.

As the Transitional Programme stresses, it was:

«The obstinate unwillingness of the Mensheviks and SRs to take power, so dramatically exposed during the July Days, which definitely doomed them before mass opinion and prepared the victory of the Bolsheviks.

Now, just as much it is time to insist that:

"The central task of the Fourth International consists in freeing the proletariat from its old leadership whose conservatism is in complete contradiction to the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating capitalism and represents the chief obstacle to historical progress.

"The chief accusation which the Fourth International advances against the traditional Radek parliamentary labour victory in England is quite possible. It will not take place in the present elections, but it is possible in the future, and then the question will arise: What is the Labour government? Is it no more than a new edition of the bourgeois-liberal government, or can we compel it to be something more? I believe Austen Chamberlain was right in saying, "If a Labour government comes into power in England, it will begin with a Clynes' administration and end in a government of the left wing, because the latter can solve the unemployed problem."

Thus, Comrades, I believe that the Executive on the whole has taken the right attitude in this question, when on the one hand it warns against the proposition of either Soviet government or nothing, and on the other hand, against the illusion which makes the workers government a sort of parachute organisations of the proletariat is the fact that they do not wish to tear themselves away from the political semi corpse of the bourgeoisie, "Under these conditions the demand systematically addressed to the old leadership: Break with the bourgeoise, take the power' is an. extremely important weapon for exposing the treacherous character of the parties and organisations of the Second, Third and Amsterdam Internationals."

While promising such leaders revolutionary support against capitalist reaction should they undertake the struggle for power, • Trotskysts must maintain their political independence of such leaderships and persist with their own critical propaganda spelling out at each stage the role of the old leaders and the necessary programme of demands to be fought for by the working class.

It is on the construction of such a Trotskyist revolutionary leadership and not on any ability of the reformists and Stalinists to transform themselves into a revolutionary force that the fate of the struggle for a workers' government and the dictatorship of the proletariat must depend.

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ay July 1980

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otskyist International Liaison Committee—