Fourth International - Third World Congress

Third World Congress

The Third World Congress in 1951 resolved that the economies of the East European states and their political regimes had come to resemble that of the USSR more and more. These states were then described as deformed workers states in an analogy with the degenerated workers state in Russia. The term deformed was used rather than degenerated, because no workers' revolution had led to the foundation of these states.

The Third World Congress envisaged the real possibility of an "international civil war" in the near future. It argued that the mass Communist parties "may, under certain favourable conditions, go beyond the aims set for them by the Soviet bureaucracy and project a revolutionary orientation". Given the supposed closeness of war, the FI thought that the Communist Parties and social democratic parties would be the only significant force that could defend the workers of the world against the imperialist camp in those countries where there were mass forces.

In line with this geopolitical perspective, Pablo argued that the only way the Trotskyists could avoid isolation was for various sections of the Fourth International to undertake long-term entryism in the mass Communist or Social Democratic parties. This tactic was known as entrism sui generis, to distinguish it from the short-term entry tactic employed before World War II. For example, it meant that the project of building an open and independent Trotskyist party was shelved in France, because it was regarded as not politically feasible alongside entry into the French Communist Party.

This perspective was accepted within the Fourth International, yet sowed the seeds for the split in 1953. At the Third World Congress, the sections agreed with the perspective of an international civil war. The French section disagreed with the associated tactic of entryism sui generis, and held that Pablo was underestimating the independent role of the working class parties in the Fourth International. The leaders of the majority of the Trotskyist organisation in France, Marcel Bleibtreu and Pierre Lambert, refused to follow the line of the International. The International leadership had them replaced by a minority, leading to a permanent split in the French section.

In the wake of the World Congress, the line of the International Leadership was generally accepted by groups around the world, including the U.S. SWP whose leader, James P. Cannon, corresponded with the French majority to support the tactic of entrism sui generis. At the same time, however, Cannon, Gerry Healy and Ernest Mandel were deeply concerned by Pablo's political evolution. Cannon and Healy were also alarmed by Pablo's intervention into the French section, and by suggestions that Pablo might use the International's authority in this way in other sections of the Fourth International that felt entrism "sui generis" was not a suitable tactic in their own countries. In particular, minority tendencies in Britain around John Lawrence and the U.S. around Bert Cochran that supported entrism "sui generis" hinted that Pablo's support for their views indicated that the International might also demand Trotskyists in those countries adopt that tactic.