By IWU-FI 10 August 2021
This initiative, which was organised in Brazil, took place from 2 to 6 August. It was an activity linked to the II International Meeting Leon Trotsky 2020, which was suspended because of the pandemic and is still pending.
Mercedes Petit, a leader of Izquierda Socialista and the IWU-FI, took part in the round table “The History of Trotskyism” on 5 August. Together with Jose Castilho de Marques Neto (historian), Serge Goulart (Esquerda Marxista/PSOL) and the moderator was Marcio Lauria Monteiro.
“Good evening,
On behalf of the IWU-FI (International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International), of Izquierda Socialista of Argentina to which I belong, a sister party of the CST, a member of the PSOL of Brazil, and myself, I am grateful for having this opportunity to take part on “Trotsky in permanence”.
Trotsky was an immense leader, known to all of us here. That is why I am going to place, speaking of the history of Trotskyism, a minimal reference to the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. From 1920 to 21, Lenin and Trotsky combated the incipient bureaucracy of the revolutionary workers’ state and the reactionary policies that Stalin and his sector in the Communist Party of the young Soviet Union were trying to implement.
In 1923-24, Trotsky, now without Lenin, led the battle of opposition to Stalin. He defended the continuity of the October revolution of 1917, of the Third International, and Marxism and Leninism. Against the reactionary policy of socialism in one country and coexistence with the world’s dominant imperialism. And also, for workers’ democracy, class independence and the building of revolutionary parties against the bureaucratic apparatus.
Trotsky lost that battle. But he never gave up, and in 1938 he founded the Fourth International. Stalin persecuted him from the 1920s until Stalin sent Ramon Mercader to assassinate him in Mexico in 1940.
This was also a fatal blow for the Fourth International. In the post-war period, there was a positive reorganisation, led by Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel. But they quickly fell into misguided policies that opened the way to over 70 years of division, dispersion and marginalisation for the Trotskyist movement. These leaders increasingly abandoned the revolutionary programme and policies of the Fourth founded by Trotsky. Opportunist revisionism was born in facing the majority of leaderships of the workers’ and mass movement. They capitulated to the Stalinist communist parties, which were strengthened by the defeat of Nazism. And they also gave in to the bourgeois nationalist movements. Pablo and Mandel abandoned not only the struggle for class and anti-bureaucratic independence but also the building of revolutionary Trotskyist parties. The leadership of the Fourth, for example, had the policy of entryism in the French Communist Party for 25 years. With the false perspective that a Third World War was coming and the communist parties would play a revolutionary role.
In this context of the late 1940s and early 1950s, what was to become our current took form. Nahuel Moreno headed it to Argentina until he died in 1987. In the 1940s, opportunist revisionism was also present in Argentina. The group, which followed the policies of Pablo and Mandel to the letter, supported the bourgeois-nationalist government of General Peron. Nahuel Moreno and a handful of young Trotskyists were taking the first steps to build a party in the working class, which was mainly Peronist. But with an opposite policy, defending a revolutionary programme, class independence and without giving support to the Peronist bourgeois government.
The triumph of the workers’ revolution in Bolivia in April 1952 put the disease of Pablo and Mandel’s opportunist revisionism to the test, which afflicted the Fourth International without Trotsky. The workers’ insurrection led to the formation of the Central Obrera Boliviana, the COB (Central Workers’ Union), armed militias and a vigorous dual workers’ and peasants’ power. Paz Estenssoro formed a bourgeois-nationalist government was formed, which COB’S leaders supported. Its top leader, Juan Lechin, became vice-president. A colossal betrayal by Pablo and Mandel came soon afterwards. Bolivian Trotskyism, the POR, had been very strong since the 1940s and in 1952 co-led the COB. The POR applied the criminal policy of Pablo and Mandel, supporting the new bourgeois government.
Nahuel Moreno, from Argentina, totally rejected this capitulation to the government and raised the policy that the central workers’ organisation, the COB, should take power. We all know what happened in Bolivia and what a great opportunity Trotskyism missed. This betrayal and other events led to the split in the Fourth International. Unfortunately, we kept on losing opportunities to develop in different countries, such as in France and England, where Trotskyism had a certain weight. And in Ceylon, where the Lanka Sama Samaja Party was very strong. They supported a bourgeois government in the 1960s and Trotskyism gradually disappeared. Pablo himself moved away, to become an adviser to the Ben Bella government in Algeria when the struggle against French imperialism triumphed.
In 1963, there was the reunification of most of the Trotskyist forces. Moreno and our current joined later, a year later, in 1964 and critically. Why? We joined because we defined it as a positive fact that Trotskyism reunified around the support of the Cuban revolution and Socialist Cuba. But we were critical because at the same time there was a big, dangerous negative aspect. Moreno warned that the reunification capitulated to opportunism and Castroism. Some important Trotskyist groups did not join that Fourth International (Unified Secretariat). They denounced revisionism, but also from a wrong, sectarian approach, rejecting the socialist character of Cuba, although the revolution had already advanced to break with the bourgeoisie and imperialism and to expropriate. Moreno’s warning, unfortunately, came true, aggravating the crisis and division of the Trotskyist movement. I will give you two examples.
One: At the end of the 1960s, Mandel and the unified secretariat gave for Latin America the orientation, totally wrong, to support guerrilla putchism, what we qualify as the “guerrilla deviation”, of capitulation to Castroism, and which meant an important setback and loss of Trotskyist cadres. Moreno rejected it, remaining faithful to the building of Trotskyist parties in Argentina, with the PRT (La Verdad-The Truth) and later the PST, well linked to the workers’ movement and its methods of struggle.
Two: In 1979, in Nicaragua, in the struggle against Somoza, led by Sandinismo, Moreno promoted the formation of a brigade to take part in the armed struggle, but independently, the Simon Bolivar Brigade. They fought on the Southern Front, and took the city of Bluefields on the Atlantic, without giving political support to Sandinismo. In July 1979, Somoza fell, and the government headed by Daniel Ortega, the current dictator, and Violeta Chamorro was formed. Mandel supported that bourgeois government and supported Fidel Castro’s call not to expropriate in Nicaragua, not to make Nicaragua a new Cuba. Not to move towards socialism. In August, shortly afterwards, the Ortega government repressed the Simon Bolivar Brigade, expelled it and handed it over to the Panamanian police. Mandel and the Fourth Unified Secretariat broke the most elementary principles of the working class and revolutionaries, supporting the repression of the Trotskyists of the brigade by the bourgeois Sandinista government.
Moreno and our current, for such capitulation, withdrew definitively from the Fourth Unified Secretariat, to promote building internationalist Trotskyist parties in different countries. Since then, we have called for the reconstruction of the Fourth principled, not supporting bourgeois governments and not capitulating to non-revolutionary leaderships, even if they lead triumphant revolutions.
We understand the study and discussion of history as a tool for the elaboration of correct revolutionary policies. The debate we raise concerning the Trotskyist movement since the post-war period is current, it continues into the 21st century. I will give three examples:
First. In Brazil, important sectors of Mandelism gave their political support to the bourgeois government of Lula and the PT when it won in 2002. One of its leaders, Miguel Rossetto, joined as Minister for Agrarian Development. We had also been inside the PT for many years, but we had been building ourselves with a different policy from that of its leadership, one of class and revolutionary independence. A few months into Lula’s government, our comrade Baba, who was then a federal deputy for the PT and a leader of the CST, together with Heloisa Helena and Luciana Genro, called to confront Lula and fight against his social security reform. The PT expelled them, and thus PSOL emerged in Brazil.
Second. In Venezuela, Chavismo emerged, which opened up a great deal of confusion on the left. Chavez claimed to be building “21st-century socialism” while handing over oil and mining to the multinationals, in capitalism of mixed companies. It was a bourgeois government of class conciliation. Of double talk, which resulted in Maduro’s current starvation and repressive disaster of its people.
Various Trotskyist groups, among them Mandel’s followers, supported the bourgeois government headed by Chavez and his false discourse of “21st-century socialism”. Meanwhile, IWU-FI Morenoism was building a Trotskyist party in Venezuela, the PSL. It was headed by workers’ leaders like Orlando Chirino and Jose Bodas. Without falling into sectarianism towards the Chavista workers, it defended class independence and supported workers’ struggles. So much so that three of our fellow trade union and political leaders were assassinated in 2008 by Chavismo hired assassins. Today, the PSL continues to denounce the false socialism of Maduro, of joint ventures and austerity measures to the people, and to defend real socialism.
Thirdly. In France, the Mandelite leadership squandered what was the decades-long construction of the LCR, the pride of its current. It abandoned the traditional revolutionary programme, and replaced it with a diffuse programme, or directly continued with no programme at all, explicitly erasing from its objectives the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the workers’ and popular government. And it abandoned the construction of that Trotskyist party to launch the NPA, the New Anti-Capitalist Party, a broad organisation, with permanent tendencies, focused on electoral issues, which undergo a constant crisis, and have been going backwards.
We wanted to present some outlines of our vision of the history of the Trotskyist movement and current debates. With the CST/PSOL in Brazil, in Izquierda Socialista in Argentina and also in other countries, we continue to build the current of Morenoism, now with the IWU-FI. For example, in Argentina, we have formed a Left Front, the FITU. Founded 10 years ago by Izquierda Socialista together with other Trotskyist parties like the PTS and the Partido Obrero. With a revolutionary programme and methods of consensus and rotation of seats, with which we have won national and provincial deputies. And together we promote unity in the trade union, to push forward the struggles and against the bureaucracy, the Combative Trade Union Plenary.
We believe Trotsky’s legacy, and the positive and negative lessons of the Trotskyist movement history, which some of us have outlined, mark a path for us. That is why we call to unite the revolutionaries, first the Trotskyists, with a programme of class independence, of no support for bourgeois governments, no support for reformist and bureaucratic leaderships, building revolutionary parties in each country, in the reconstruction’s perspective of the Fourth International and for the triumph of workers’ and popular governments and real socialism throughout the world.
Thank you very much.”
Answer to questions and last remarks
“You have asked if Nahuel Moreno had any relation with Mario Pedrosa, founder of Trotskyism in Brazil and who attended in 1938 in France the meeting that founded the Fourth, under the pseudonym of Lebrun. I think not. Moreno took part in the 1948 world congress, and presented texts with other leaders, for example, Bill Hunter, but I had no mention of him doing anything in common with Pedrosa if he also attended that congress.
For what appeared in the chat, like “questions” or supposed quotes, there was a participant who called not to make caricatures. Let’s not fall into falsifications, and even less so in a debate like this one, which has been so respectful and serious, and with the little time, we have available. The “etapist” Moreno thing, the throwing out quotes taken out of context in the chat, are falsifications, caricatures, common in currents that, instead of expressing and defending their positions and arguing honestly, are devoted to lying about others.
I only say to them we are the only current of Trotskyism that can say we built fighting against the surrender of other Trotskyists to the bourgeoisie. To these assistants who slander in the chat, I say: look again at the video with my intervention. Bolivia 1952, Nicaragua 1979. Trotskyists supporting bourgeois governments, instead of developing the workers’ and socialist revolution. They speak of “Moreno as “etapist” when he was the only one who said the COB should take power, the only one who made a brigade to join in the struggle to overthrow Somoza, and the Sandinistas threw it out because they wanted to continue developing the revolution. Is that “etapism”?
And in the 21st century, going back to Chavez’ government. Many Trotskyist groups supported the false socialism of the 21st century, of Chavez and now Maduro. Yes, comrades, this is our trajectory: class independence, the relentless struggle against capitulation to the bourgeoisie and class conciliation, which has destroyed Trotskyism.
As for uniting revolutionaries, we call on revolutionaries, first Trotskyists, to come together with a programme of class independence, of no support for bourgeois governments, no support for reformist and bureaucratic leaderships, building revolutionary parties in each country, in the way of re-building the Fourth International and for the triumph of workers’ and popular governments and real socialism throughout the world.
Although it is a much more partial experience, I mention again what we have been achieving with the Left Front for the last ten years in Argentina. The LF, with its limitations, is where Trotskyist revolutionaries unite, by calling for support to workers’ struggles and a popular government and socialism, class independence, the struggle against the government, be it Peronist or another bosses’ variant, all the bourgeois governments, together with more immediate slogans for the workers, like non-payment of the debt, wage increases, the fight against inflation, now to have vaccines. So, we consider this a very positive step.
Finally, I wanted to refer to Cuba, which the other panellists mentioned and you asked about in the chat. We stand in solidarity with the Cuban people who took to the streets in Havana and other cities, in rejection of the inequality in which they live. We believe these protests are legitimate and therefore we call for international solidarity with them. Of course, as always, we continue to repudiate the US embargo, and the manoeuvres and use of the protest by the Cuban right-wing in Miami. But we reject the repression by the government of the Cuban Communist Party. We demand full freedom for Frank Garcia and other detained fighters! No more repression of the people’s protests.
We also reject the policy of the Cuban government to restore capitalism with joint ventures with tourism, mining, tobacco multinationals. These are the imperialist capitalist multinationals from Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, among others. Even with multinationals from Brazil. We repudiate the fact that Cuban workers have starvation wages of 10 to 20 dollars.
We reject the fact that in Cuba there are shops for the rich, for those who have dollars, and if there are no shortages, there are no problems. Shops for the military, for government officials, while the markets for the poor, who are the vast majority of the Cuban people, are always out of stock. And when products are available, many cannot buy them because their little money runs out in the first days of the month. For the first time in many years, the Cuban people took to the streets against hunger, against poverty, and also demanded the right to protest. In Cuba, it is forbidden to go on strike; it is forbidden to show. I repeat, therefore, we support these demonstrations by the Cuban people, and at the same time, we are fighting for Cuba to return to the path of Che and socialism with democracy.
Briefly, in Nicaragua, we could say that the dictator Daniel Ortega would be the Central American expression of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro. These capitalist governments of double talk, which disguise themselves as leftists to repress and starve their people more and more ferociously. There is nothing progressive, nothing left-wing and nothing socialist about either of them. We have supported and vindicated the mobilisation against Maduro in 2017, for which we have a revolutionary Trotskyist party in Venezuela, the PSL. That is why we have never supported Chávez, although we have sought dialogue and tried to fight together with the Chavista workers.
We are in solidarity with the Cuban people who took to the streets because of their hunger, and with the Nicaraguan people who are protesting against the dictatorship of Ortega and his wife.
Well, it would have been nice to continue with other questions, but time is up. I am very grateful for being part of this event of “Trotsky in permanence”, the fraternal exchange with Jose and Serge, the excellent coordination of Marcio. Thank you very much.”
More on Moreno and Trotskyism in permanence:
1953-The Break with Pabloism.
1964-Two Methods for the Latin American Revolution.
1973-Argentina and Bolivia-The Balance Sheet.
1973-The Party and the Revolution.
1975-Revolution and Counter revolution in Portugal.
1980-The Transitional Program Today.
1986-Our experience with Lambertism (with Mercedes Petit).
These books are in pdf in www.nahuelmoreno.org
