Discussion Article PROBLEMS OF

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We publish here the first of two parts of a discussion history and problems of the Marxist movement in Pakistan.

We do so not because we are in complete agreement with the views expressed — indeed there are several points with which we have considerable disagreement - but because we feel that discussion on such questions is of importance to those within the Trotskyist movement who take seriously the need to build the Fourth International with sections active colonin problem of programme and pespective for revaarion in the Trotskyists if we are not to descend to mere abstractions.

We will therefore publish this discussion article and foliow it with our points of reply - while inviting also our readers to contribute to the discussion. Letters or articles submitted to Socialist Press should be kept as Telegates to the Fourth Congress of the Thus, "fictitious capital continued to distend, especially in those I countries where industry continued to slump." ("First Five Years"

The epoch was one of:

*retribution for the drain and destruction of wartime, one of levelling out in reverse - upswings can be only of a superficial and primary speculative character, while the crises become more and more prolonged and deeper-going.

("First Five Years" Vol 1, With the benefit of hindsight we (can see how correct this view was. While giving the impression of "stabilising, , the world economy was actually heading directly Itowards a cataclysmic slump.

COMPLEX

Trotsky noted that The situation is becoming more and more favourable for us, but it is also growing extremely complex." The task of the Third Congress was therefore to raise the Comintern to a higher level and make it more ¡expert tactically.

Later, Trotsky was to write:

"With the Third Congress it is realised that the post-war revollutionary ferment is over....The turn is taken to winning the masses, using the united front, that is, 'organising the masses on prograDime of transitional demands.

The Fourth Congress of the Communist International was held in 1922 in Petrograd. This proved to be the last Leninist Congress. Lenin, together with Trotsky, prepared the main report on the ¡tuation of the Soviet Republic und the perspectives of world revolation, and Trotsky delivered the jumming up speeches after each of these.

The problems of the united front. and of the formation of a vorkers' government were the most mportant tactical questions miscussed, along with that of trade anion tactics.

No programme was adopted; in act until the Sixth Congress, the comintern had adopted no coditied programme. Particular attention vas, however, given to the internal ituations in various parties.

"THEORY"

Conspicuously absent from any if the first four Congresses, like stalin himself, was his "theory" of socialism in one country. This imti-Marxist doctrine was not ¡romulgated until the Fifth longress of the International in 1924. : It is significant that this 'theory" could not be presented intil Lenin had died; it was in bntradiction to all the traditions hat the International stood for, nd. at its root lay despair at the ossibility of revolutionary ictories in the advanced countries f Western Europe.

By degrees, this nationalist olicy of the Soviet bureaucracy nposed itself upon the parties of le Communist International. This risis in the International in this jay reflected the Crisis eveloping within the leadership of le Communist Party itself.

The slogan, "The United States ¡ Europe" , fought for in 1923 by rotskv at the time of tha Duhr 1.2A Comintern - the last Leninist Congress.

crisis, was abandoned by the Stalinists after 1926.

The nature of the Comintern itself was to be radically altered as Stalin consolidated the grip of the bureaucracy. The political line adopted led to numerous defeats;

the next Congress was postponed for four years.

This merely demonstrates the contempt that the Stalinists showed towards the international working class.

On top of this, expulsions took place throughout the Communist Parties of the world, ridding them of many of the movement's strongest members.

As Trotsky pointed out:

"If we examine the lists of delegates to the first four Congresses.... we find that, after Lenin's death - all, with one exception, were not only removed from the leadership but were also expelled from the Communist This could be seen no longer as the erroneous result of a bureaucratic approach, but as an increasingly deliberate and concerted attempt to derail the revolTrotsky said in his 1928 work, The Third International After Lenin, "In our epoch, which is the epoch of imperialism, ie, of world economy and world politics under the hegemony of finance capital, not a single communist party can establish its programme by proceeding solely or mainly from conditions and tendencies of developments in its own country..."

"An international communist programme is in no case the sum total of national programmes or an amalgam of thei common features. (P3-4, Pathfinder edition).

Trotsky did not consider defeats already sustained in Germany (1923), China and elsewhere were isolated events, but the product of a fundamentally wrong political approach.

The 'socialism in one country' "theory" had its roots in the social layers represented by the bureaucracy the peasantry, Stalin and Bukharin in particular, believed that socialism could be built at a 'snail's pace' • The Trotskyist Left Opposition arose in 1923 to oppose the political domination and wrong policies of the bureaucracy, but made it clear the achievement of full communism was impossible in Russia without revolution in one of the advanced Western economies.

Nationalism and bureaucratisation, in the form of Stalinism, worked together to ossify the International. What resulted was a steady chain of defeats for the international proletariat.

DEFEAT In particular, the tragic defeat of the German working class in 1933 followed the split in the German workers' movement created by the Stalinists who branded the social-democrats as "social fascists" (after whinh tha Mammiaham Stalin Radek Bukharin Zinoviey stated that the policy had been "quite correct").

This defeat, stemming from the corruption of the most powertul Communist Party outside Russia and followed by not a ripple of discussion or analysis inside the Comintern, led Trotsky to conclude that the Third international was dead as a revolutionary organisation.

As a consequence he began the formation of the Fourth International, which was founded in 1938.

As he stated in its programme, "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International" ; "The world situation as a whole is characterised by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat"

In the face of the continuing treacherous policies of Stalinist Communist Parties worldwide today, it is clear that the only way forward is to build the Fourth International as a fighting body. That is the outstanding lesson of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Third International.

hv PATE LISTER in every country.

brief as possible to avoid any necessity for cuts.

In 1947 Pakistan inherited only one Marxist tradition and that was the Communist Party of India.

A Communist Party which consisted of a few dedicated Marxist intellectuals, whose dedication very conveniently turned into the worst kind of Marxist dogma which led to a complete isolation from the masses.

The basic cause of this 'tumover' was the famous Comintern which did not provide either ideological or tactical guidance to the Communist Party of India.

Even at the Second and Third Congresses of the Comintern indifference was displayed by the leading Marxists including Lenin. At the Third Congress the CPI's representative, M.N. Roy said:

have been allowed five minutes for my report [on India].

As this theme cannot be dealt with adequately even in an hour, I wish to employ these five minutes for an energetic protest. The way in which the tastern question has been dealt with at this Congress is purely opportunist, and is worthy rather of a Congress of the Second International. It is absolutely impossible to draw any practical conclusions whatever from the few sentences which the Eastern delegations have been allowed to speak.

Roy's theses Ipresented at the Second Congress) argued that the Communists of colonial countries can play a decisive role against imperialism.

The theses were accepted with a few amendments and decisions were taken accordingly, but Safarov (who collaborated with Lenin on the Eastern question) indicated in his report to the Fourth Congress that nothing practical was done to cope with the situation in the East.

He said:

"In spite of the decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International, the Communist Parties of the imperialist countries have done extraordinarily little to deal with the national and colonial question... Worse still, the flag of Communism. is used to hide chauvinist ideas foreign and hostile to proletarian internationalism.

The theses approved on the Eastern question at the Fourth Congress were so superficial and abstract as to produce no substantial results. Roy said:

"we thought that, simply because {the countries of the East! were all politically, economically and socially backward, we could lump them all together, and deal with this problem as though it were a general problem. But this was a mistake. We know today that the Eastern countries cannot be taken a as a homogenous whole, neither politically, economically пог socially. This Eastern question therefore represents for the Communist International a question of greater complexity than the struggle in the West - assuming that the International is nrenared to It seems that Comrade Roy's assumption was soon to be found wrong. The Fourth Congress was the last Congress Lenin attended before his death in 1924. After this came the dominance of Stalin Who was the person least likely to take seriously anything except Russia's security and the creation of Communist colonies.

In Stalin's view the national bourgeois movement in India showed better prospects as an ally than the young Communist Party of India..

Stalin wanted the communists of India to rely upon the national bourgeois leaders of Congress and the Muslim League.

Roy, however, strongly opposed the idea of collaborating with (OT rather liquidating into) a movement which did not possess any longterm revolutionary programme.

But the CPl, not being established on a national scale, was not in a position to integrate with the masses; its leaders were thus unable to change the essence of the movement.

This impotence resulted in an ideological paralysis and a total submission to Russian interests.

In 1947, Pakistan's share of the CPI was a handful of impotent Muslim communists along with a population clinging to religious ideals.

For the middle class members of the Muslim League, all the economic bases of creating a new country were packed into one abstract bundle of metaphysical nonsense.

Pakistan was created, they in order to enable the traditions of Islam, because they wanted to demonstrate to the world that Islam provides a panacea to the many diseases which have crept into the life of humanity today." (Liaqat Ali Khan).

Moreover, there were practically no industrial workers and more than 85% of the population was still entangled in feudal relations of So the Muslim part of the CPI was left with only one possible ally - the progressive' middle class.

But they didn't have much luck even with them the way they tended to present Marx. In reaction to the strong religious values of that society, they preached (or at least appeared to preach) that being an atheist and immoral is a pre-requisite of being a communist.

Subsequently, the CPI proved to be highly adventuristic and too ambitious in jts approach towards a religious-feudal society.

Its members were destined to remain grumbling spectators in that rapidly changing political situation.

iy FAUZIA RAFIO

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utionary process. At the centre of this was the nationalist "theory" of 'socialism in one country'. As

Muslims thought to build up their lives in accordance with the teachings and