The future is ours¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter’s central argument is that the crisis of world revolution is fundamentally a crisis of proletarian leadership. The old mass organisations—the Second (Social Democratic) and Third (Stalinist) Internationals—have demonstrated their historical bankruptcy through a series of catastrophic defeats inflicted upon the working class. These defeats, however, were not accidental but the direct product of the pernicious policies of Stalinism and Social Democracy, which engendered a wave of reaction that isolated the nascent forces of the Fourth International. The chapter insists that it was impossible to convince even the advanced layers of the working class of the correctness of Trotskyist positions except through the bitter experience of these defeats. Yet the same defeats produced a demoralising reaction within the ranks of the revolutionary vanguard itself, including within the Fourth International.
The polemical thrust is directed squarely against the Second and Third Internationals, which are accused of having learned nothing from the disasters they caused and, in the hour of mortal danger for the workers, of having perfidiously rallied to the side of world imperialism. The chapter predicts that the coming revolutionary wave will subject all tendencies within the working class to a decisive test, revealing the bankruptcy of the old organisations in the flames of revolution itself. The missing ingredient in past revolutionary opportunities was a trained Bolshevik party and Bolshevik leadership. The new upsurge, particularly in Britain, creates the possibility for the creation and training of such a party.
The chapter periodises the work of the Fourth International from 1928 to 1938 as a phase of theoretical clarification and cadre selection—essentially, theoretical preparation. The war and its aftermath mark the beginning of a new epoch, one in which the history of the Trotskyist tendency truly begins. Britain is singled out as offering exceptional opportunities, free from the handicaps suffered by continental co-thinkers. The Workers’ International League, with a correct policy and orientation, can play a great role. Tens of thousands of advanced workers already have their eyes open to the treacherous role of Stalinism and reformism. The task is to fuse revolutionary theory, policy and action with revolutionary audacity and optimism, in order to build the party and lead the workers to the conquest of power.