Our tasks in Europe¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: Our Tasks in Europe¶
This chapter, drafted by Ted Grant for the Central Committee of the British Revolutionary Communist Party in November 1944, argues that the Fourth International can only build mass revolutionary parties through tactics finely attuned to shifting mass moods. The core premise is that the bourgeoisie, weakened by capitalist decay, can no longer establish open fascist dictatorships like Hitler’s or Mussolini’s. Instead, the world faces a new revolutionary cycle comparable to 1917–21, but on a higher level. Only rotten workers’ organisations—Stalinist and social democratic parties—give capitalism a breathing space; if revolution fails, the bourgeoisie may resort to neo-fascism.
The chapter insists that the struggle for democratic, economic, and transitional demands is not obsolete but crucial. Alongside propaganda for soviets, comrades must agitate for mass organisations to break with the bourgeoisie and take power, using the rallying cry “A government of socialists and communists!” Key demands include universal suffrage from 18, a constituent assembly, nationalisation without compensation, workers’ control, expropriation of trusts, public works, a sliding scale of hours and wages, and arming workers. Without these transitional demands, the Fourth International risks sectarian sterility.
The historical context is stark: the deaths of Ernst Thälmann (leader of the German Communist Party, executed at Buchenwald on August 18 1944) and Rudolf Breitscheid (chairman of the Social Democrat Party, killed in an Allied bombing of Buchenwald on August 24 1944) symbolise the twin betrayals of Stalinism and social democracy. John Maclean, a Scottish revolutionary and Bolshevik representative in Scotland, and Eugene Debs, an American socialist jailed for opposing World War I, are invoked as exemplary figures. The chapter notes that small and big nations of Europe are satellites of the great powers striving for world domination; real self-determination can only be achieved through a federation of socialist states via proletarian revolution.
Notable polemics target centrist currents, which will appear due to the International’s weakness and lack of authoritative spokesmen like Trotsky. Authority will be built through cadres learning in struggle and masses experiencing the programme’s application. Stalinist and social democratic parties will face constant crises and splits; the Fourth International will grow at their expense. The chapter concludes that only through correct tactics and transitional demands can the International avoid sectarian sterility and build mass revolutionary parties.