The PTS moved to the ranks of opportunism and revisionism that usurped the IV International
For the Menshevik clique of the PTS what the fall of the Stalinist apparatus in '89 opened is a generalized "crisis of imperialist domination", which has even broken the strategic impasse in favour of the revolution. They speak to us of such a world, as if there were a triumphant Russian revolution and a Third International with mass parties throughout the world, as in the 1920s. They show us a world as if the political revolution had triumphed in 1989 with a revolutionary leadership.
They have developed the pseudo-theory according to which by the fall of Stalinism and the crisis of counterrevolutionary mediations, the masses enjoy a "handicap" that makes revolutions easier. They give the fall of that counterrevolutionary apparatus such an absolute value, that they state that -although due to the crisis of subjectivity, due to the backwardness in consciousness- the revolution is harder to achieve, but once it starts it is unstoppable because they face very weak counterrevolutionary leaderships.
This "theory of handicap", completely Menshevik, is nothing but a variant of Morenoist objectivism. Nahuel Moreno argued that, due to the conditions of the imperialist era, due to the absolute maturity of the objective conditions for the proletarian revolution, any revolution, led by any leadership, was unstoppable and objectively socialist. For the ex-PTS, it is the extreme weakness of the counterrevolutionary leaderships that gives the masses a "handicap" and makes it easier when they enter the revolution.
What the Menshevik clique leading the ex-PTS cannot explain is why this "handicap" does not appear in Indonesia, where the masses, after a year of their revolution, still cannot build soviets and arm themselves and overthrow the Suhartist regime in crisis; such scenario allows the bourgeoisie and imperialism to try "democratic" solutions to divert the revolution, it gives them time to strengthen themselves and go on the counter-offensive to crush the masses. This clique cannot explain either, why the Ecuadorian masses, with their recurring uprisings that again and again hit the regime and the governments, fail to advance in the path of proletarian revolution, overthrow the regime and impose a workers and peasants government based in councils of workers and peasants.
The "handicap theory" leads to a spontaneous and easy conception of the revolution. Such a theory denies that when the bourgeoisie feels threatened, it sharpens its class instinct. Before the revolution, the bourgeoisie appeals, either to the popular front, to the unity of the counterrevolutionary workers' parties with the "democratic" and "progressive" bourgeoisie to deceive and paralyze the workers with the poison of class conciliation, as well as to the counterrevolutionary coup attempt, what in Russia of '17 was the "Kornilov insurrection", to crush the Revolution. The theory of "structurally weak" mediations applied to Indonesia, Ecuador or any other open revolutionary process means that there will be no action of the counterrevolution or that they would be very weak; that there would not be popular fronts or "Kornilov insurrections". Within this scheme, it cannot be explained, for example, how the rise of the European working class in '95, which was expressed by great political struggles, was diverted by the preventive maneuver of voting bourgeois workers' parties and the emergence of social democratic governments. It means, in addition, that once the power has been taken in a country, it is not exposed to the direct aggression of imperialism because by "handicap" this one is not going to be able to act. Only someone who is not in their right mind can argue that the revolution has a "strategic handicap" while imperialism exists, that, in addition to the deception of the popular front, will do all they can to break it: it will create armies, invade, pay counterrevolutionary movements, etc. It is therefore a "theory" for an isolated revolution, similar to that of petty bourgeois currents such as Sandinism, which believed that could bargain with imperialism and that they would not attack them. So, if that were the case, why the IV International? The "handicap theory" leads to a conception of revolution without enemies in sight, without counterrevolution, without confrontation with imperialism; i.e. it leads to a nationalist-Trotskyist and pacifist cartoon.
Against all this semi-intellectual charlatanism of very low level, the principled Trotskyists affirm that for the masses to start their revolution is always a tortuous and difficult path, develop it and make it succeed, and not by its "crisis of subjectivity", but by the action of the law of fundamental historical causality of this epoch of crisis, wars and revolutions: for the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the proletariat, the crisis of the Fourth International. It is this crisis that gives a "handicap", not to the masses but to imperialism, which never allows "empty of leadership" -like those that Moreno saw and today sees the former-PTS- but permanently, buying and corrupting, creates new counterrevolutionary leaderships and recreates the old, to ensure the continuity of its domain. Thus we have seen, since 1989, imperialism -despite losing its strategic partner, the Stalinist world apparatus- creating and recreating new counterrevolutionary leaderships: Zapatismo in Mexico, neo-Naoism in Ecuador, "opposition" bureaucracies such as the CTA in Argentina, the Brazilian MST, the revolt in Indonesia of the party of MegawatiSukarnoputri, the empty hands bourgeois nationalisms like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, etc.
For his "theory" of the "handicap" to be complete, it is necessary to explain why the revolution is late; why until it starts the process is so tortuous and difficult: they answer because of the "crisis of subjectivity", because of the backwardness of the consciousness of the masses. They even talk about "almost zero subjectivity." To reinforce this concept, comparing, we are told that the "crisis of subjectivity" was not as serious during the First World War, as it is now, because of Stalinism’s actions. Moreover, they state: "It is interesting to note that many currents that claim to be Trotskyists have transformed Trotsky's definition of 'crisis of leadership’ into a supra-historical, abstract concept, dissolving its content into a general statement, which means the same in 1919, 1938, 1968-74 or 1999. This revision in the Yalta years, led to 'embellish' the counterrevolutionary work of Stalinism, diluting its nefarious role in the demoralization of the workers movement and the degradation of its subjectivity. "
We could say, after reading this paragraph, that the thief has been caught red-handed, because all his revisionism unfolds in it. But this passage does not play a key role but is intended to go unnoticed, putting it, semi-hidden, as a footnote, in the latest issue of “International Strategy”. As the vulgar swindlers do, the important thing is in "fine print". Precisely this has been the method of the revisionists of Marxism like Kautsky, Hilferding or Mandel, who introduced much of their poison surreptitiously, through "footnotes".
Why not clarify, as they should, with full words to whom they refer when they speak of those who "have transformed Trotsky's definition of ''crisis of leadership’ into a supra-historical, abstract concept, dissolving its content into a general statement"? Who will they be? The truth that we only know those who have rejected this fundamental thesis of the Transition Program: the usurping centrism of Trotskyism has always denied that "The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership", and in that way it capitulates the counterrevolutionary leaderships. That is, centrism denies this thesis, as does the Menshevik clique that runs the PTS, because it considers it, precisely... an abstraction! Of course, the crisis of leadership acquires a concrete character in each situation, but we do not know anyone in the ranks of the Menshevik centrism that states "that it means the same in 1919, 1938, 1968-74 or 1999" as it is invented in the " footnote", but quite the opposite. The currents of Menshevik centrism have precisely been characterized by maintaining that the thesis on the crisis of leadership written by Trotsky in 1936 is an exaggerated generalization, which is no longer valid after World War II because, as stated by Pabloism, the Stalinist bureaucracy was going to turn to the left and become the revolutionary leadership of humanity. On the other hand, there have been spontaneist and objectivist currents such as Morenism, to which the Menshevik clique of the PTS follows in its steps, for which the crisis of leadership does not exist because the revolution is made alone, with any leadership. Against whom is this "footnote" directed, then? What is considered "supra-historical"?
This poisonous and half-hidden passage is directed precisely against that fundamental thesis of Trotskyism. Because, can you tell us what is "abstract" about "the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of its revolutionary leadership"? The degree of impudence is so great that it is considered that defending this thesis against the Mensheviks who deny it, like them, who live at the feet of the counterrevolutionary leaderships and the regimes of imperialist democracy, means... "'embellish' the counterrevolutionary work of Stalinism, diluting its nefarious role in the demoralization of the workers movement and the degradation of its subjectivity'. The fact that this is coming from those who state that the key aspect of this epoch is the "crisis of subjectivity" of the masses, that is to say of those who blame the defeats on the masses for their backward consciousness, gets on one’s nerves! That is to embellish the counterrevolutionary work of the treacherous leaderships and the union bureaucracy!
But since we are on the train not to "embellish" anyone, if it were true that the crisis of direction "does not mean the same" under the rule of Stalinism as in 1914 under the absolute rule of social democracy, how is it called a period where the workers are convinced by their own leadership, the Second International, to kill each other in defence of their imperialist bourgeoisie? Frankly, if there is an "almost zero subjectivity" -in case such a degree exists- it is that one! Precisely, because the central thesis of the Transition Program is valid throughout the century, because it explains the reason why imperialism can continue to extend its agony, it acquires the validity of a law, a rule for the whole period. But the centrists who wallow in the mud of capitulation and adaptation to the counterrevolutionary directions consider it ... "supra-historical"!
Leaving aside all this charlatanism, the masses, pushed by the objectively revolutionary conditions and taking advantage of the gaps that open up, managed, based on their spontaneity and combativeness, to initiate large independent actions that panic, divide and push back the ruling classes and their regimes, most of the time with a contradictory conscience, when not directly backward, with the sole conviction that the current situation is intolerable. And the heat of those actions is that they can overcome that awareness and increase their experience. But that "subjectivity" and backward consciousness are not fallen from the sky. It is the ideological expression of a material question: the multitude of betrayals of the counterrevolutionary leaderships, the social democracy and Stalinism, the impotence in which they add these leadership to the unions, the defeats that they gave to the working class, the loss of great achievements resulting from these betrayals, such as the expropriation of the bourgeoisie in a third of the planet, the workers' states that, although bureaucratized, were conquests that these leaders have collaborated to deliver. Against what all the centrists - and particularly the Menshevik clique of the ex-PTS, who normally blame the masses for the leaderships they have and thus saving them- state, "the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of his revolutionary leadership."
Thus, the metaphysician sees the consciousness of the proletariat dominated by the "overproduction of bourgeois ideology," as the ex-PTS now says, but this is not because of the "overproduction" of betrayals! They talk about "zero subjectivity" and do not see that consciousness is expressed in institutions. The "socialist consciousness of the proletariat" were conquests, institutions, expropriations of the bourgeoisie carried out with triumphant revolutions. His current consciousness is the expression of the loss of those conquests and defeats imposed for decades by the counterrevolutionary leaderships, that is, by the crisis of revolutionary leadership. Because the real dialectic of the twentieth century is that the blows by the left given by the masses are responded by blows by the right wing of imperialism and its agents, the counterrevolutionary leaderships, which is what allows the survival of an agonizing capitalist system.
Only the resolution of the crisis of revolutionary leadership can break the "strategic impasse" between revolution and counterrevolution in favour of the world proletariat
One of the central theses of the ex-PTS to explain the consequences of the events of 1989 is one that states that these events would have broken the strategic impasse between revolution and counterrevolution that had been opened during the Yalta period; such impasse was marked from the point of view of the proletariat by the fact that tactical triumphs (the various triumphant revolutions at national level) led to strategic defeats due to the character of the Stalinist and petty-bourgeois leaderships that led them (China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc.). According to the ex-PTS then, '89 broke that strategic impasse, reversing the law: now the road of the proletariat would be plagued by tactical defeats, but which inevitably lead to the final strategic triumph.
Those currents of Menshevik centrism that mourn the death of Stalinism, the currents nostalgic of Yalta, are exactly the other side of the same coin. For them, there was no strategic impasse in Yalta, because revolutions triumphed that, although directed by the Stalinist bureaucracy, strengthened the "socialist camp". On the contrary, now that the counterrevolutionary bureaucracy has fallen and with it the "socialist camp", what has triumphed is imperialism imposing a defeat on the world proletariat. Both are faces of the same Menshevik and Objectivist currency, because they deny the law of fundamental historical causality of the time of crisis, wars and revolutions: that the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of its revolutionary leadership.
We, on the contrary, affirm that the fall of the world Stalinist apparatus and the outbreak and crisis of the communist parties in 1989 did not mark the breaking of any strategic impasse, because there was no mass Fourth International; i.e. there was no revolutionary leadership to play the role of the III International after WW I. Namely, the fall of Stalinism as a world counterrevolutionary apparatus at the hands of the mobilized masses was undoubtedly a "blow by left" given by the latter. But insofar as there was no mass Fourth International, that is, by the crisis of revolutionary leadership, imperialism and restorationist bureaucracies responded with a blow by the right, aborting the political revolution and imposing counterrevolution.
Although the masses, with their actions, can bring imperialist domination into crisis, our current has maintained: "Today we affirm that '89 does not break the strategic impasse of the revolution and the counterrevolution in the 20th century. Such impasse can only be broken completely and effectively, and transformed into a historical revolutionary period, when revolutions headed by revolutionary parties, members of a revolutionary International of the proletariat, triumph. We affirm -against what Yalta's Trotskyism said- that this strategic impasse in Yalta was not broken despite the enormous triumph that meant the expropriation of the bourgeoisie in a third of the planet. Because these revolutions were headed by counterrevolutionary leaders who, from the first day, worked to push them back and turn them over to imperialism, because they were enemies of the world revolution.
And we affirm that '89 -against what post-Yalta Trotskyism says- despite having thrown down the world Stalinist apparatus, did not break the strategic impasse, because bureaucracy, becoming a direct agent of imperialism, and the defeats given to the proletariat in the '70s and' 80s, due to the betrayal of their leaders, prevented the synchronization of the processes of the East and the West and aborted the political revolution (...)
We affirm, with Lenin and Trotsky (...) that the only thing that can break this strategic impasse is a Leninist, fourth internationalist feather that defines the balance of forces at the world level supported by major revolutionary events of the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world." (Bulletin of International Workers' Information No. 3, April 1999).
Therefore, we affirm that the only moment of the century in which this strategic impasse was broken in favour of the international proletariat was the foundation of the Third Mass International after the triumph of the October Revolution. And, still, Lenin’s Third International, which had been proposed in its foundation and as an immediate task the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the main countries of Europe -in which the imperialist war and the impact of The Russian Revolution had given birth to revolutionary processes- it had to make a turn in its third congress, given the delay caused by the immaturity of the CPs, towards the tactic of a united front, against the strengthening of the social democracy, whose ranks included thousands of workers, after the defeat of the German and Hungarian revolutions in 1919-20 and against the period of capitalist stabilization that, as a consequence of these defeats, was opened in Europe.
The greatest damage done to the international proletariat by social democracy and Stalinism throughout the century was the liquidation of its internationalist conscience: the social democracy leading the workers to massacre each other in two world imperialist butcheries; Stalinism, bureaucratizing the Soviet workers state and raising the reactionary pseudo-theory of "socialism in one country", liquidating the Third International in the pacts and negotiations prior to World War II with the imperialist bourgeoisies and making the USSR member of the League of Nations, and betraying and leading to defeat the revolutionary processes during the '30s, the immediate postwar period and '68-'74.
Therefore, we affirm that the only moment of the century in which this strategic impasse was broken in favor of the international proletariat was the foundation of the mass Third International after the victory of the October Revolution. And still, the Third International in life of Lenin, which had posed from its foundation as an immediate task the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the main countries of Europe -in which the imperialist war and the impact of the Russian Revolution had given birth to revolutionary processes-had to take a step back in its third congress, due to the delay caused by the immaturity of the CP’s towards the tactic of a united front, against the strengthening of the social democracy, whose ranks included thousands of workers, after the defeat of the German revolution and the Hungarian revolution in 1919-20 and against the period of capitalist stabilization that, as a consequence of these defeats, was opened in Europe.
The greatest damage done to the international proletariat by social democracy and Stalinism throughout the century was the liquidation of its internationalist consciousness: the social democracy leading the workers to massacre each other in two world imperialist butcheries; Stalinism, bureaucratizing the Soviet workers state and raising the reactionary pseudo-theory of "socialism in one country", liquidating the Third International as currency in the pacts and negotiations prior to World War II with the imperialist bourgeoisies and making the USSR to the League of Nations, and betraying and leading to defeat the revolutionary processes of the decade of the '30s, of the immediate postwar period, of '68 -'74.
And the Fourth International that had the possibility, during Yalta, of transforming itself into a very powerful current in the labor movement, even of having acquired mass weight, that had to fight to build sections in Russia, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, etc., is to say, to fight to maintain the continuity of the internationalist consciousness of the proletariat, in the hands of the centrists and the Mensheviks who usurped it, was unable to do so. The real "crisis of subjectivity" is not that of the masses. It is yours, you Menshevik centrist masters. It has a name and surname: adaptation to Stalinism, to the counterrevolutionary directorates of all folds, and in that way, to regimes of imperialist democracy. To paraphrase Trotsky, we say: stop talking about "the masses, the masses", that the problem is not the masses but in what spirit they are prepared to educate you, the "master leaders"! If in the 1920s the German revolution and the Hungarian revolution were defeated because of the immaturity of the Communist Parties of those countries, young parties that had been founded almost at the same time as the Third International, in the events of 1989 there was no there was "immaturity" of the Fourth International, but senility of the old Menshevik centrist sects that usurped the name and flags of the Fourth International, caused by decades of adaptation to Stalinism.
Although the loss of gains always means a defeat, if there is an international revolutionary leadership that takes revolutionary lessons from these defeats, that expresses them in a revolutionary program and in the struggle against treacherous leaderships, there is the possibility of strategic triumph. That is why the only thing that can break the strategic impasse between revolution and counterrevolution in favor of the proletariat is the resolution of the crisis of revolutionary leadership, the existence of a world party of social revolution, of the masses, that is, the Fourth International regenerated and refounded on Bolshevik bases, expounding it from the Menshevik centrists who have usurped its flags, and from insurrectionist Leninist combat parties that can lead the proletariat and the exploited masses, confronting and defeating all the counterrevolutionary leaderships, to triumph: to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the seizure of power and the establishment of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Revisionists and opportunists hands off Rosa Luxemburg!
All the Menshevik centrists who enroll in the pro-social democratic wing take the figure of the great Polish revolutionary who was Rosa Luxemburg to oppose her to Lenin. But for that, they castrate all their revolutionary character. As the Second International does, they transform it into a vulgar reformer and in this way attack the bases of the Leninist theory of the insurrectionist party, deny the "red terror" and reject the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is, they carry out an attack on the whole rule against the revolutionary Marxism of the twentieth century. In this wing, currents like Revolutionary Socialism of Italy and the remains of the old MAS of Argentina militate.
With its spontaneous, objectivist, facilitative and pacifist theories of the revolution, about the "handicap of the proletariat" and the "crisis of subjectivity", the PTS today has become part of this pro-social democratic wing of the Menshevik centrism. Although they keep the forms and do not break with Leninism, they raise a conception of the working class in this era of wars, crises and revolutions that ends in the unique part of the working class that is a return to the Second International, They liquidate the strike pickets, the workers' militias, the armament of the proletariat. As a whole symptom, it is also noted among those who claim the Luxemburgish spontaneity with the famous quote that "the path of the proletariat to its final triumph is plagued with defeats."
This is not new. All those who turned against revolutionary Marxism throughout the century wanted to use the figure of Rosa Luxemburg by twisting their positions and taking their misconceptions and circumstantial differences with Lenin to turn them into a weapon against him. Regarding the appeals of the Social Democracy to the figure of the legendary Polish revolutionary, Lenin himself wrote:
"Paul Levi wants to make good friends with the bourgeoisie - and consequently with his agents, the Second and Second and Second Internationals - publishing the writings of Rosa Luxemburg in which she was wrong. To this we will respond with a phrase from an old Russian fable: 'It is usually the case that eagles fly lower than chickens, but a hen can never go back like an eagle.' Rosa Luxemburg was wrong about the independence of Poland, she was mistaken in 1903 in her analysis of Menshevism, she was wrong in the theory of the accumulation of capital, she was wrong in June 1914 when, together with Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky and others she advocated for the unity of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, she made a mistake in what she wrote in prison in 1918 (she corrected most of these errors in late 1918 and early 1919 when she was released). But, in spite of her mistakes, she was -and for us she still is- an eagle.”
And he finishes, in homage and defense of Rosa:
"'Since August 4, 1914, the German Social Democracy is a rotten corpse': that phrase will make the name of Rosa Luxemburg famous in the history of the workers' movement. And of course, in the back yard of the labor movement, among the piles of dung, the Paul Levi, Scheideman and Kautsky-type chickens cackle about the errors of that great communist. Everyone does what they can."(Notes from a journalist, Lenin, written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1924).
Trotsky also had to come to the defense of Luxemburg when Stalin intended, on the basis of the differences between them, to oppose her to Lenin, saying that while Lenin had fought Kautsky permanently, Luxemburg was limited to defending him from the left (to finish by returning this maneuver against Trotsky, claiming that Luxemburg had allied herself with him in the Theory of Permanent Revolution against Lenin).
Against this twisted interpretation, Trotsky wrote in 1932, an article entitled Hands off Rosa Luxemburg, in which he quotes Lenin himself recognizing that Rosa Luxemburg was the pioneer in the fight against opportunism in the German and international social democracy. For this he quotes a letter from Lenin himself, where he recognizes it:
"... I hate and despise Kautsky now more than the rest of the hypocritical, grubby, vile and self-sufficient herd... R. Luxemburg is right, she understood long ago that Kautsky possessed to such a degree the 'servility of a theorist' ': said more clearly, he was always a lackey, a lackey of the majority of the party, a lackey of opportunism.'”
Trotsky proofs, in the words of Lenin himself, that Luxemburg had been right in the struggle against opportunism and the degeneration of the Second International, which had seen and fought against it long before him, when even Lenin himself considered himself a disciple of Kautsky in his disputes against the right wing of the II International headed by Bernstein.
The method practiced by Stalinism is to transform personalities, like Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin himself, into something static, always equal to themselves. Stalinism turned Lenin into a historical figure and Rosa Luxemburg, to slander her, into another one. It said both were permanently confronted and Lenin was always right. On the contrary, Trotsky argued; "Lenin was not born fully formed, as the servile sylphs of the 'divine' paint him, but intoLenin he became." And he adds: "If Lenin had understood and formulated everything that the coming times required, the rest of his life would have been a constant succession of reiterations. But it was not like that, really. Stalin simply gives Lenin the Stalinist postmark and coins it in coins from the numbered proverbs."
While Kautsky developed, before 1914, pacifist positions against the growing militarism, which were fought by Luxemburg as reformist illusions, Lenin himself came to defend the positions of Kautsky. No doubt that later changed, and how it changed!He became the most bitter enemy of all pacifist illusion, calling for "revolutionary defeatism", to "turn the rifle", to turn the inter-imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war! But it is not obvious that in this central point of the time, the struggle against the counterrevolutionary leaders, at that moment in the form of the degeneration of the II International, Rosa Luxemburg anticipated everyone andshowed the path, even to the point that Lenin himself recognizes that this is why her name will be famous in the history of the workers' movement.
Really, the blood cannot but boil when we see the Menshevik centrists, who capitulate to the treacherous leaderships, invoke the name of the great revolutionary who was the first to fight them!
But Trotsky not only defended Luxemburg against Stalin's attacks, but he also made another defense of it that is highly topical, with the use of Luxembourg by the pro-social democratic centrists, appealing to spontaneity. In 1935, he wrote; "Efforts are currently being made in France and elsewhere to build the so-called Luxemburgism as a defense of the centrists against the Bolshevik-Leninists." He referred to the SAP, Workers Socialist Party, a centrist split of social democracy, which approached the Left Opposition in the 1930s, and then retreated. If there was anything in which the SAP was characterized, it was in its most abject opportunism. The same could be said now about the "efforts" that are being made from the ranks of pro-social-democratic centrism!
Trotsky does not see in Rosa's theory of spontaneity a conception that goes against Lenin, but, from a general point of view, totally opposed to the reformist apparatuses:
"It is undeniable that Rosa Luxemburg passionately opposed the spontaneity of the actions of the masses to the conservative policy "crowned by the victory"of the German Social Democracy, especially after 1905. This opposition had an absolutely revolutionary and progressive character. Long before Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg understood the delaying nature of ossified party and union apparatuses and began to fight against them. Inasmuch as she had the inevitable sharpening of class conflicts, she always predicted with certainty the independent elementary appearance of the masses against the will and the line of conduct of the ruling party. In this general historical sense, it is proven that Rosa was right. Because the revolution of 1918 was 'spontaneous', that is, the masses carried it out against the provisions and precautions of the party leadership. But on the other hand, the whole history of Germany has amply demonstrated that spontaneity alone is far from sufficient to achieve success, the Hitler regime is a strong argument against the panacea of spontaneity."("Luxembourg and the Fourth International", 1935. Our bold).
And he adds:
"It can be said without fear of exaggeration: what determines the world situation is the crisis of proletarian leadership. Today, in the field of the labor movement it is still full of immense remnants of the old bankrupt organizations. After innumerable sacrifices and disappointments, the bulk of the European proletariat has retreated, at least to the shell. The decisive lesson that he has drawn, consciously or unconsciously, from these bitter experiences, says: great actions require a great direction. For current affairs, the workers still give their votes to the old organizations. The votes, but in no way their unlimited confidence.
The other aspect of this is that, after the miserable collapse of the Third International, it is much more difficult to make them place confidence in a new revolutionary organization. That is precisely where the crisis of the proletarian leadership lies. Singing a monotonous song about mass actions in an indeterminate future in this situation, as opposed to a careful selection of cadres for a new international, means carrying out a totally reactionary work."("Luxembourg and the Fourth International", 1935. Our bold).
80 years after the murder of the great Polish revolutionary at the hands of the police led by the German Social Democracy, the centrists of today, as emulators of the SAP of the '30s, while developing the most open opportunism, console themselves with the "monotonous song" on the spontaneity of the masses, with the hope, of a mystical and reactionary nature, that the hard defeats will become strategic triumphs through the work and grace of the "panacea" of the "handicap of the proletariat" and the overcoming of the "crisis of subjectivity." We can say, like Lenin, that from far away you can see the chickens flying that will never be able to climb the eagle flight of Rosa Luxemburg! We say as Trotsky: Hands off Rosa Luxemburg!
Rosa Luxemburg was the enemy of the traitors of the proletariat and the counterrevolutionary leaders; the first fighter of this struggle, who united Lenin in the insight to recognize the traitors of the working class. Trotsky said:
"The confusionists of spontaneity have as much right to refer to Rosa as the miserable bureaucrats of the Comintern to Lenin. Let us leave aside the overcomeincidents and with all justification, we can place our work for the Fourth International under the sign of the 'three L': not only under the sign of Lenin, but also of Luxemburg and Liebknecht."•
