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Speech at the November 1967 Marxist Symposium in London.
Transcribed by Duncan Chapel.
Published at the Red Mile Substack
Copied with thanks.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Comrades, today we are all witness to the big crisis of American imperialism. American imperialism is beaten militarily in Vietnam. And of course, today, we don’t know if we are near peace or only a truce, but we can expect that under this blow, the blows they have received from the Vietnamese people, the escalation is stopped. American imperialists also know a big financial crisis, the gold crisis, which shows that its policy was unprotected by some big capitalist circles. American imperialism is also knowing a big leadership crisis, which we have seen in the last weeks by the fact that Johnson resigns for the next presidency, and we see that for the coming months, the question of leadership of American imperialists is put into question. We also have seen in the last days the big crisis coming to a climax: this is the matter of the Negro in the States. All these facts are, of course, very good for the struggle against imperialism. They are all showing a deterioration of the forces of American imperialism.
But it would be a big mistake to think that American imperialism is a paper tiger, a strong man with feet of clay. American imperialism still has big resources, and the discussions, the differences among American leaders are not differences about capitulation, but how to conduct the war, how to conduct the struggles against the forces of socialists all over the world. And in this connection, American imperialism not only has big resources – material resources, political resources – American imperialism has a big advantage. They think in terms of a global strategy. Once against them, there is not something which can be compared on the same level.
The blows received by American imperialists in the last period were delivered by the Vietnamese people, almost alone for many years. And the Vietnamese people received support from small masses, intellectuals, students in demonstrations, which were certainly very important, as in London, in Berlin, in New York, and other places. But nevertheless, demonstrations which were not containing, not mobilizing the great masses of the working class.
And today, the , which is very important in the present situation, because American imperialists have received such big blows, it is the to deliver bigger blows and to find a way to organize a global strategy to struggle against American imperialists, to use the present conditions in order to mobilize even more masses and to unify those struggles against American imperialists in the coming period.
I may say that this of the global strategy for many years has been
put forward only by small groups, small organizations. And it was
mainly our movement, the Fourth International, we presented, from the
beginning of the Vietnam War, the escalation in the Vietnam War in
1964-65, the necessity to oppose a global strategy to American
imperialism. And in this matter, we put forward the idea, which was
also defended at the same time and in the same period by the Cuban
leadership, and especially in the statement made by Che Guevara on
the necessity of having a second or a third Vietnam in order to force
American imperialism to fight on a broader scale, on a broader front
on which it was, for him, very difficult to mobilize forces in order
to proceed on such a front.
American imperialism could proceed for months and months and years
on this escalation because, at that time, the main forces which could
have stopped him, which could have refrained the progress of American
imperialism in this struggle, were not united. American imperialism
exploited the division between the two main states, the two main
worker states, China and the Soviet Union. In the last period, during
this time, also the worker states did not give the Vietnam people the
material help in sufficient quantity. In the last period, this of
material help to the Vietnam people has certainly increased, but the
war of the American people and the struggle against American
imperialism is not and cannot be only a matter of material help, a
matter of weapons against weapons. The war is a political war; it
needs political allies. And on this matter, the American ... the
strategy of American imperialism, which has been, of course,
countered by the resistance of the Vietnam people, has not found, up
to now, a global strategy which could break its policy and which
could ensure its decisive defeat of American imperialism. It’s
only in the last year or about that the propaganda which was made for
a global strategy, for a second, a third Vietnam, has started to be
achieved, but on a very small scale, but nevertheless, on a scale
which showed the possibilities, the tremendous possibilities, of a
global strategy.
I think it is not necessary to insist very much here on the of the
demonstrations that have been multiplied all over the world, as well
in Europe or in Asia or in other countries, and that those
demonstrations have had all the more importance that they were
simultaneous in time, and that there were days of demonstrations all
over the world against the American war, against the Vietnamese
people. But I repeat on this, unfortunately, the big masses up to
now have not been mobilized, and their organizations, the mass
organizations, have not changed their policy and have not mobilized
the workers for the struggle against imperialism. I think it’s
not necessary to deal with the policy of social democracy. Everyone
knows that they are the most servile allies of Washington, and their
policy is rejected by all the vanguard all over the world. But what
is more important is to see those on whom the Vietnamese and other
colonial people would normally think that they would support them,
and I come here to the policy carried by the worker states and by the
Communist Party all over the world.
They held, recently, a conference in Budapest. After long years of
preparation, on the eve of this conference, they have made a turn in
their policy. So, for years, they defended the slogan of peace in
Vietnam. I must say, they smelled the victory of the Vietnamese that
they sent, for the first time, a delegation of their leadership, of
their Central Committee, to Hanoi. Only last month, when the
Vietnamese victory was on the agenda, that they found the necessity
to send a delegation to Hanoi. But their attitude towards the Vietnam
War is also illustrated by the fact that their main preoccupation is
not the victory of the Vietnam people, but their main preoccupation
is to prepare a government after the disappearance of de Gaulle, to
prepare a government with the Social Democrats and with the radicals
and so on and so forth. And those people, the Federation of the Left,
they are still today for peace in Vietnam. They have, two days ago,
made an appeal for negotiations. But negotiation means where the
Americans will save not only face, but their position in Southeast
Asia. And the French Communist Party did not make any publicity on
the fact that a couple of months ago, this Federation of the Left
intended to send a delegation to Vietnam, but it was a dual
delegation, one to North Vietnam, and the other one to Saigon. And of
course, this delegation didn’t come off because Hanoi refused
to receive them in such conditions, the delegation of the French
Federation of the Left.
And I think that we see in this matter, the policy of the French
Communist Party is, in spite of saying that they are for the victory
of Vietnam, they do nothing very important to mobilize the masses, to
mobilize the workers. And in the present condition, every time
demonstrations were asked for to make in front of the American
Embassy, those who call for that were called provocateurs and people
who were the enemy of the working class. So in this matter, their
policy is still a policy which is, in words, for the victory of
Vietnam, but actually, they have no intention to organize and to see
that there should be a general world strategy to fight American
imperialism.
And by comparison with what has been going on in Budapest or the policy of the Communist parties all over the world, I think that what has been the reactions of the governments and the situation today in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union is revealing what are the main preoccupations of the leaderships in those countries, and what is for them the main danger. I think that the situation in Warsaw is very, very clear: we have there a government repressing students, throwing out of the universities professors, who are asking in those countries that there should be a real democracy within the worker state, there should be freedom of speech, freedom of organization. In the case of Poland, they have designated as the political leaders of the movement against them, those who were asking for freedoms, who were asking for the abolition of censorship.
For those bureaucrats, for those leaderships of worker states, the
of Vietnam, well, they help Vietnam because they can do nothing else,
they have to help Vietnam. But nevertheless, the of Vietnam is for
them a sort of nuisance for their policy of pacific coexistence. What
they are much more interested in is to defend their own privileges in
the countries they rule, and there they say that they cannot tolerate
any mass movement, which undoubtedly would be for the support of the
Vietnam people against American imperialism.
In this condition, is it impossible to have a global strategy of
struggle against imperialism, a world strategy against imperialism?
In spite of those difficulties, in spite of the obstacle presented by
the leadership of the mass organizations, it is not impossible to
rule, to change this situation. It is not impossible to force, at
least partly, to force, in some measure, those leaderships to change
their policy. The changes which have occurred in the communist
movement, official communist movement, the changes which are
occurring now, have been forced. I repeat, as I said at the
beginning, by the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese. It has been
imposed to them by the position taken by the Cuban leadership. It has
been imposed to them by those demonstrations all over the world of
youth against American imperialism. In these conditions, they were
afraid to lose the control of masses, even small masses, but
nevertheless, important young people, and they have partly changed
their policy.
In the present condition, it is necessary not to stop those
actions, but on the contrary, to strengthen them, to multiply them.
Precisely in the present condition, if American imperialism is partly
retreating, if American imperialism is now partly in the necessity to
change its policy, it’s not the time to stop the struggle
against American imperialism. On the contrary, it’s the time to
strike it stronger, quicker, to give them, to give to American
imperialists, much more blows. All the present actions against
American imperialists must multiply, and I’m sure that all over
the world, we will assist in the coming months to new demonstrations,
to new manifestations, and the victory of the Vietnamese people will
inspire more and more people to demonstrate, to fight for their
liberation.
But the old leaderships can only act, can only move within limits, and these limits are rather narrow now. And the battle against imperialism will not stop after, even if the war stops in Vietnam. The fight against imperialism is a struggle which can end only by a world victory over capitalism, world capitalism, by victory which will eliminate capitalism in all countries. And this can be achieved only, not only by partial victories, but can be achieved by victories also in the main industrial countries, which necessitates that there arise from the present movement, new mass revolutionary leaderships.
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