Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 18:12:06 +0200 (MET DST)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: The Transitional Program!


After Hugh's post on the transitional program i felt almost forced to do a 
close reading of it once again. it has been awhile since the last time. What 
is so incredible is how relative it is to today,s situation. As a working 
class kid it was the Transitional program which first attracted me to the 
Trotskyists. It was the answer i needed after being raised in a ghetto with 
working class parents. I was raised on picket lines and the McCarthy era. 
Later on used a a piece of meat in imperialist colonial warfare both in Cuba 
and Vietnam. When I first began to wake up it was hardly the Trotskyists i 
turned too, but direct action, some very adventurist action, directed at 
taking on imperialism single handidly! Well, it did not work and i wound up 
in exile first in Europe and later Scandinavia. Here I came into contact 
with the Transitional Program. A little book (60 pages) which for the first 
time showed me a way out of the dead end.

Only to find out through futher studies the Stalinists had sabotaged any 
kind of Bolshevik politics in the workers movement over a whole historical 
period leading up to today. But i knew that if there was a way out this was 
it. Unfortunately at this time there were very few workers at least in 
Europe who adhered to any kind of Trotskyism. In fact it was mostly students 
and intellectualls in the post war revival around Vietnam and May of 68. 
Naturally this unbalance has caused a lot of problems and splits in the 
Trotskist movement. It is much easier for a student to theorize and split 
here and then there then for a working class kid. In fact it has been very 
difficult trying to find a way through the maze of intellectuals claiming 
the banner. But what kept me hanging on was that little book the 
Transitional Program and Trotskys and Lenins writtings..

In fact if all of those who claim the Trotskyist mantel were to take this 
document (The transitional Program) as a starting point for and 
International regroupment it would be a great leap forward in preparation 
for come what must!

The post war Trotskyists groups have also been effected by much of what has 
happened. There has been some pretty horrible opportunism, out right 
betrayal, splits and all the rest. One of the main reasons I believe is the 
tremendous pressure put on these groups both by events, but also the 
domination of the Social Democrats and the Stalinists in the Labor movement. 
And not in the least the physical liqidation of Trotskyist cadre during this 
historical period. 

Many still are sitting in their trenches, others who make the claim of being 
Trotskyist and who are opportunist to the core and even others who have 
become old and inbittered or just given up.No group or individual has been 
left unscarred by all of this.

Therefore i claim that no group or tendency can claim the mantel without a 
serious International conference taking place for a discussion of the very 
basics.


In the Trotskyist world there is also a tendency of not seeing what the 
enormous events in the past years really mean. A tendency of despair, a 
tendency of trying to find new slick formulas and a tendency to completely 
disregard events that open up a real opportunity for the future.  The most 
vital is the complete disintegration of the Stalinists and the jump by the 
Social Democracy in to the camp of the bourgeoisie!


Naturally we have left overs from the Stalinist parties, not in the least 
the maoists of the ultra left period, but also of the right period. However 
without state power and Moscow or Peking to hold them up they are dead in 
the workers movement. There ideas stem from many of the dead end tactics of 
the now dead Stalinism.

All the various groups and tendencies of Stalinism are in a shambles. The 
Euro-Communists are becoming Social Democrats. The State Capitalists are 
trying to reorientate their fundemental counter revolutionary betrayal of 
any kind of Bolshevik politics. The Anarchists are in a shambles. The Social 
Democrats are leaping into the arms of the bourgeois.

Today more then ever in the Transitional program and the basic documents of 
the of the Trotskyist left opposition up until its founding lie the seed of 
a revolutionary regroupment Internationally under the banner of a reforged 
Communist International.

All of the present tendencies and groups who do not take this opportunity to 
go back to the very basics and founding documents of the Fourth 
International, but continue on their merry way as if nothing has happened 
the last few years in regards to the Stalinist and Social Democratic 
traitors of the International Proletariat and do not realize that The 
transitional program (in its entirety) makes a good ground for an 
International regroupment of forces claiming the Trotskyist banner would be 
criminal. In fact more than criminal, a direct betrayal of those in back of 
us who fought and died for these documents in one of the blackist periods of 
history.But also a direct betrayal of the International Proletariat that has 
been beheaded of its Social Democratic and Stalinists leadership in later 
years and a Revolutionary leadership far longer!

The International Proletariat has no leadership today! Into this space that 
has opened up would be a good place for a reforged International leadership 
of Trotskist forces based on the fundemental documents of the movement we 
derived from!

But it should be based on those documents in their entirety and a leadership 
and a cadre who are prepared to fight for that program in forming a mass 
revolutionary vanguard. It can not be a halfway house for those who advocate 
just parts of the Transitional Program, nor ultra leftists who deny that the 
program does not go far enough! But a cadre who are prepared to move forward 
on the concrete basics and the Transitional program in its ENTIRETY. That 
i,m afraid is the only road forward! That i  am prepared to work for. All 
else is just bullshit!

For the first time since the consolidation of the Stalinists as a counter 
revolutionary force in the Labor movement, their power is broken! Smashed 
and disintegrated by its own rotten politics and imperialist pressure. The 
Social Democrats after this Spectacular event have taken gigantic leaps into 
the arms of the bougeoisie both on the National level and International level. 

For the first time the path is layed wide open for the intervention of the 
basic politics of the Fourth International. If we miss this chance we are 
heading for a new and unpresidented period of barbary! But this time we can 
not blame the Stalinists and the Social Democrats. The blame must be put 
squarely on the shoulders of those who claim the mantel of Trotskyism!

Finally without a serious International Conference an attempt of regroupment 
by all parties and groups on the basic fundementals and Transitional Program 
of Trotsky and the Left Opposition the Proletariat should turn their backs 
to all of those claiming the mantle, because none of you deserve the right 
of their history. Besides it is only these documents that can lay a basis 
for real unity and possibility of moving  Forward to the reforging of the 
Fourth International.

Robert Malecki
Bergmastargatan 11B
915 31  Robertsfors
Sweden

In exile, in Sweden and still a Trotskyist!





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