Matière et Révolution

The second trial of Socrates, that of his friends

Robert Paris — 2026-06-18T04:06:00Z

The second trial of Socrates, that of his friends

In 399 BC, more than 2400 years ago, Socrates died from poison, condemned to death by Athenian justice, and his trial still generates much discussion, as it did in Greek society…
The assassination of the philosopher Socrates is one of the first crimes of the nascent Greek state in Athens... and all the more striking because it was committed by the "Greek democracy" ! But who was this thinker of ancient Greece that the ruling classes preferred to get rid of him ? Those who considered themselves his disciples will answer that question.
The second trial of Socrates, that of his friends

Xenophon : I believe everyone has now found a place to settle or sit. Since I am the one who initiated our meeting, I will take the liberty of speaking at length in introducing our assembly. First, I wish to warmly thank Critias of Megara, whose father, a sculptor, has kindly agreed to host our gathering here in his shop, a year after the death of our teacher, Socrates. Let us hope that the sculptures surrounding us, like so many figures of stone and marble, inspire noble thoughts ! And let us remember that our teacher, Socrates, himself excelled in the field of sculpture, and that his "Three Graces," in front of the Acropolis, provided a fine example of his art, even though he later changed his profession entirely.

And, of course, I also pay tribute to our hosts : Euclid of Megara and his friends Eubulides of Miletus, Ichtyas of Megara, and Thrasymachus of Corinth, who tirelessly spread the philosophy of Socrates and thanks to whom we are all safe and well in Megara. We thank them for this. Everyone remembers that Euclid is known for having continued to attend Socrates' university despite the Peloponnesian War, traveling from Megara to Athens disguised as a woman, even though one of the causes of this war was the decree forbidding the inhabitants of Megara from entering Athens... He thus risked his life so as not to miss Socrates' teachings.

Here, we have all, at one time or another, attended his school in the street, or his open-air academy, as you prefer to call it. I will make brief introductions, since some of us have never met before, and sometimes our only commonality is having been students of Socrates, at different times and under different circumstances. Philosophy is well represented here, but so are the arts, including the art of theater, the art of science, the art of mathematics, and also the art of politics and the art of war, the art of the lawyer as well as that of the sculptor, and our friends come from many Greek cities. Thank you all for being here, thus demonstrating that the trial of Socrates in no way diminished the validity of his ideas or the credibility of his person, and that his death did not cause him to be forgotten.

To my right, three friends from Athens whom I need not introduce : Plato, Hermogenes and Alcibiades. On my left, Apollodorus of Phalerum, Phaedo of Elis, Cebes of Thebes, Simmias of Thebes, Crito of Athens and his sons Critobulus, Epigenes and Ctesippus, Antisthenes whom we all consider a citizen of Athens, even though the city still refuses him full citizenship, Lysanias of Sphettos, Echecrates of Tarentum, Hermocrates of Syracuse, Terpsion of Megara, Ctesippus of Paeaneus, Menexenus of Athens, Aristippus of Cyrene, Aristodemus of Athens, Coriscus of Scepsis, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Clombrotus of Aegina, Charmides of Athens, Lysias of Athens, now adopted by Megara, Theaetetus of Athens, one of our great mathematicians, and finally Spintharus of Tarentum, our music teacher. Paris of Troy will be responsible for memorizing our debates.

As you all know, we are but a small fraction of those who have embraced Socrates' philosophy, and if all of Socrates' students were to be here, the city of Megara itself would struggle to accommodate them all ! Many of our friends are absent for various reasons, including the wars ravaging our region. Some of Socrates' greatest disciples are no longer with us, such as Euripides of Salamis, whose plays moved us so deeply and who passed away eight years ago. Among his merits, let us remember that he alone dared to tell Athens that its myths were lies and that its supposedly heroic era was nothing but mud and blood, particularly in the war against the Trojans. Far from seeking to liberate Greek women abducted by the Trojans, he showed in his play that the war's primary aim was to enslave Trojan women and their children. Euripides always showed his plays to Socrates. And this is because they were in complete agreement on political and social goals, even though Socrates, unlike Euripides, did not believe that society could be transformed by theater alone. We also mourn Chaerephon of Athens, Socrates' childhood friend, whose brother, Chaerecrates, is with us, and whom Socrates loved most of all his disciples, and with whom he enjoyed exploring his ideas. Chaerephon died a few years before his master. As we all know, Chaerephon's impassioned temperament made him the most passionate defender of Socrates' theories. It is remembered that he was the one who consulted the Pythia of Delphi for her opinion on Socrates, and that opinion declared that "Socrates is the wisest man in Athens." And Prodicus of Ceos, whose teachings Socrates had followed, has also just passed away. In fact, it is Socrates' dearest friends who have died with him.

We are still reeling from the shock of the trial that befell our master Socrates, condemning him to death, and, a year later, we remain concerned about the significance of this condemnation and its potential consequences. Indeed, this is why many of his disciples in Athens have sought refuge here in Megara, fearing further persecution of Socrates' friends.

Some of us were with Socrates in his final moments. Others, myself included, were not present at the trial or with him before his death, except in spirit. Each of us has been able to gather a fragment of these painful events, which we wished to discuss, and, beyond a brief moment of reflection, we can exchange these few pieces of information and opinions. I hardly need to say it, and we will all agree on this, Socrates was the best among us : neither bribed nor deceived by hypocritical praise, nor weakened by gifts. It is scarcely believable that he could have been condemned based on reproaches concerning his person and his conduct. We are certainly divided on the interpretation of this decision by Athens and its consequences for Greece. But I must say that I do not understand at all what persuaded the Athenians to condemn him, and I understand even less what led Socrates to refuse to defend himself, and, faced with the iniquity of the judgment, it is even more incomprehensible to me that Socrates refused to flee as some of you had suggested.

Personally, I left Athens long before that to join the army of Cyrus the Younger, because the demagogic political regime that reigned in my city no longer suited me. But I wonder if I didn't only witness the beginning of a profound and harmful change. We will surely have the opportunity to discuss this. I would simply like to say by way of introduction that, while many of us, like myself and Alcibiades, owe our lives to Socrates, who saved us in the war, we all owe him true life—the life of ideas, the life of philosophy, into which he so happily introduced us…

To begin our meeting, I would like someone to explain to me what could have led the citizens of Athens to attack Socrates in this way. I was absent, and it seems to me that I no longer understand our city.

Hermogenes : Since you ask, Xenophon, I will briefly recall the circumstances : Athens had just been militarily defeated by Sparta, and a tyrannical regime subservient to the victor had been imposed upon it. It was morally humiliated, economically devastated, and politically violated—ravaged in every sense of the word. With the end of the Peloponnesian War came the end of the proud city's illusions of glory : its army defeated, its fleet dissolved, its walls demolished, its fields destroyed, its olive oil production wiped out, and its agricultural output so low that it could not even feed the city. The economy, particularly with the Laurium mines idle due to the escape of more than 20,000 slaves, was in a catastrophic state, and the coffers of the proud city were empty. Merchants had fled Piraeus, the population was decimated by the plague, the citizens' bodies were broken by war… Morale was at rock bottom, and so were the prospects. To overcome this, the city's leaders needed a culprit, a scapegoat, represented by Socrates. In his play, "The Clouds," Aristophanes had already laid the groundwork by demonizing Socrates and his companions in harsh terms in the eyes of the citizens : "Ugh ! Scoundrels, yes, I know. You mean those charlatans, those sallow-faced individuals, those barefoot vagrants, among whom is that evil genius Socrates…" By portraying Socrates as a figure falsely associated with the Sophists, Aristophanes had prepared the accusations of atheism and corrupting the youth that formed the basis of the trial. After hearing the accusations levelled against Socrates, he defended himself, as was his custom. He refused to let Lysias write his speech. The results speak for themselves : 280 judges condemned him and 221 acquitted him. It was therefore up to Socrates to propose a punishment, but since he was, in his own eyes, guilty of nothing, he proposed that he be fed at the Prytaneum, like the heroes and victors of the city. The judges, thinking that Socrates was mocking them, condemned him to death. Socrates proclaimed to the judges that his death would not end the suffering of Athens and that others would take his place. To condemn Socrates was, above all, to condemn defeat, not to find a solution to Athens' predicament, and it would not prevent people from philosophizing after him. This is a summary, which I hope is accurate, of the recent events that made Socrates a scapegoat, and others will certainly add to my account.

Apollodorus : It is scarcely believable that, on the word of three liars and fools—the accusing poet Meletus and two of his friends, the orator Lycon and the politician Anytus, three proven incompetents—our Socrates, known to all, could have been condemned to death for mere remarks that might have caused offense. The statements of these three false witnesses, whose accusations were clearly driven by hatred and jealousy, were confused, sometimes contradictory, and obviously unreliable. They appeared so clearly as pure and simple denigration that the court should have condemned the accuser and his witnesses for slanderous denunciation, with the intent to harm others. It is an incredible miscarriage of justice ! I feel utterly lost at the thought that we were unable to save his life...

Phaedo : To accuse Socrates, they used people who had grievances not against Socrates himself, but against Socrates' former friends, like Critias. For example, take Anytus. Remember that his former friend was Theramenes. Theramenes had participated, alongside Critias, in the government of the Thirty Tyrants, before being eliminated by Critias. Anytus resented Socrates because Critias was a former student of Socrates. But Socrates had nothing to do with the government of the Thirty Tyrants and did not support tyranny, even refusing to obey its orders at the risk of his life. Socrates had never considered that his group participate in this government of the Thirty Tyrants. He had even dissuaded Plato, who had briefly been involved. It was Theramenes himself who was close to Critias, much closer than Socrates ! That is the whole basis of Anytus's hatred ! Other accusers were jealous of Socrates' abilities and resented his harsh remarks about them, as was the case with Meletus. But in Aristophanes' case, it is clearly a matter of social and political hatred. In "The Birds," he mocks Socrates' admirers, accusing them of admiring Sparta above all else. In "The Assemblywomen," which Aristophanes was preparing, it is the Socrates who favored women's freedom who is accused of fomenting revolutionary unrest in which women would seize power. And in "The Clouds," it is the youth whom Socrates is accused of corrupting and turning against their parents, destroying the family, the official foundation of the state. He is portrayed there as an atheist sophist, which in Athens was a very serious accusation.

Xenophon : Socrates had publicly reproached Anytus for wanting his son to succeed him in government and for having educated him with that goal in mind. It was therefore out of personal resentment that Anytus accused Socrates of corrupting the youth. This wealthy Athenian, enriched by his tannery, belonged to the democratic party that had succeeded the tyranny and of which he was one of the leaders. This party resented Socrates' influence on the children of its members, such as Plato, and his relentless criticism of the "democrats'" demagoguery. Along with Thrasybulus, Anytus actively participated in the downfall of the oligarchic government of the Thirty Tyrants, leading the breakthrough at Piraeus. He also proved to be a fierce opponent of the Sophists. These are all reasons that must have led him to fight Socrates, unjustly presented by Aristophanes as one of the leading Sophists of Athens.

– Aristodemus : What the Athenian authorities orchestrated was not a simple trial : it was a veritable public execution of the political figure that Socrates represented. Let us recall Socrates' reply to Euthyphro, who asked him if he was going to his trial : "Not a trial, Euthyphro : the Athenians call it a matter of state." It was the state that Socrates was dealing with. A state that was still under construction and barely in its infancy. The jealousy of certain disreputable individuals, who were his accusers, served as a cover for an act perpetrated by the Athenian authorities. The manner in which he was tried in public demonstrates this. It was not a conventional trial by an ordinary court. Such an apparatus would not have been deployed, nor such expenses incurred, for a minor matter. Who were these judges ? Ordinary volunteer citizens, at least thirty years old. They were paid three obols per day of hearings, equivalent to half a day's wages for a laborer. This meager sum could only be affordable for elderly citizens, for whom it amounted to a retirement pension, or for unemployed or unfit young men. The cost to the Athenian administration was nonetheless considerable : this trial was equivalent to paying a day's wages to two hundred and fifty workers. The trial of Socrates, a matter of great importance, claimed to concern the entire city : it was a veritable affair of state. The judges, moreover, swore a formal oath to "vote in accordance with the laws and decrees of the Athenian people." This evident gravity did not prevent the proceedings from being conducted at breakneck speed : all the debates had to be concluded within a single day (Socrates himself regretted this haste on numerous occasions). Ten thousand citizens attended the trial, and five hundred and one citizens served on the jury. The aim was to permanently discredit Socrates in the eyes of the people, to make it seem as if the entire population of Athens had executed him. In fact, the death of Socrates was indeed a crime against the state !

Hermogenes : The accusation was indeed, first and foremost, political. The accuser cited two pieces of evidence that the young men trained by Socrates were depraved : Critias and Alcibiades. The former was in no way a disciple of Socrates, even though he had received some instruction from him. When Critias came to power during the tyranny of the Thirty, Critias and Charicles, who led the thirty tyrants, heard of Socrates' scathing criticisms of their government. Socrates told anyone who would listen the fable of the two shepherds who claimed to be the best, but whose flock, under their leadership, had become smaller and thinner. He openly declared that those in positions of power who behaved similarly should be called bad shepherds. Hearing of Socrates' criticisms, the two tyrants summoned him one day and forbade him from lecturing young people. At the risk of his life, Socrates responded in his usual insolent manner with questions. "Wanting to fully understand this prohibition so that I can better apply it," he said, "may I ask you about its meaning ?" Upon their affirmative response, he asked what kind of questions he should not answer. For example, if a young man asked him for the address of Critias or Charicles, should he refuse to answer ? Then he asked, if he bought something from a teenager, did he have the right to ask the price ? After that, he inquired at what age he should consider someone too young to speak to him. Charicles replied that he should not only leave the city's youth alone, but also the carpenters, blacksmiths, and other manual laborers, about whom Socrates spoke too much, according to the tyrant. He also added the cowherds to show Socrates that he was aware of his criticism of the two shepherds, Charicles and Critias. And so on… What this shows, first and foremost, is that the ruling classes knew of Socrates' combativeness and political courage, and that they feared him. Whether tyrants or so-called democrats, all believed that Socrates' outspokenness could do them great harm, revealing their hidden agendas and political manipulations. Attributing Critias' crimes to Socrates was a tremendous slander. Even Alcibiades' excesses cannot be held against Socrates, since the latter in no way supported Alcibiades' policies when he came to power. However, the prosecution thus reminded the court that Socrates was a political figure who could destabilize the regime, and it succeeded in its aim, because this, in fact, was true.

As for Alcibiades, I can say this all the more easily since he is here with us today ; everyone knows he was no longer the same man when he tried his hand at power. But everyone remembers the twenty-year-old who dared to address Pericles in the manner of Socrates, back when Pericles was not only his tutor but also the first citizen of Athens : “ Tell me, Pericles, is it called law what has been decreed by the legislator if it goes against the deliberations of the assembly ? Is it called law what a small committee of wealthy citizens has decided, discreetly in private, to the detriment of the majority of citizens ? Is it law what a tyrant imposes against the will of the entire people ?” And Pericles confirmed that all of these were laws that had to be obeyed. And, Alcibiades boldly asked, conversely, if the people are powerful and impose their will on the wealthiest, can what they decree be considered laws ? Pericles replied that no, that was an act of violence against the established order ! And against whom, you think, Pericles railed ? Against Socrates, of course, since it was to Socrates that Pericles owed Alcibiades's unreasonable reasoning… But it certainly wasn't Socrates's fault if, intoxicated by his successes, his popularity, and perhaps by wine, our friend Alcibiades committed excesses and intoxicated the youth with his warlike enthusiasm. Alcibiades had, for a time, chosen to accept becoming a man of Athenian power, believing that in this way he would also have the power to reform society. He can attest that Socrates had warned him, saying : “Alcibiades, by becoming head of state and commander of the army, you will not have more freedom to act in the interest of the citizens, but on the contrary, you will be the least free man of all the citizens of the city. You will not be the one who holds the power, but you will be the hostage of power. You will be the most chained man in Athens, and at your slightest move, they will get rid of you.” And Alcibiades only proved Socrates perfectly right. The authorities took advantage of the enthusiasm Alcibiades had generated and then wasted no time in discrediting him and bringing him down. He hadn't even had time to take his post at the head of the Athenian armies before he was accused and dragged into court. Political power may appear to pass into the hands of the most skillful politician, but this is merely an illusion : real power remains, in fact, in the hands of the wealthiest citizens, the ruling class. Politicians come and go, but the powerful families remain.

– Phaedo : Aeschylus was all the more celebrated at the Great Dionysia for his "Oresteia" because he praised the "democratic" system during the reign of Pericles. The entire cleverly established electoral system was deified, while tyranny (which, ironically, relied much more heavily on the people) was denounced ! The theater praised the system all the more because it had fostered its art by demanding massive citizen participation and compensating them for their involvement in the plays... Art had thus been completely instrumentalized by the powers that be. This was one of the traps that Socrates had exposed through his critique.

Apollodorus : I still remember the words of Simmias and Cebes, shortly before Socrates' death, weeping : "We no longer have our enchanting master" ... Just imagine : Socrates is gone forever. Phaedo, you told me you considered him your spiritual father, and I wonder if I didn't consider him my father, period, so eager was I to consult him on every matter. A man who wished no harm to anyone, who was content with the weapon of criticism in his struggle, who refused the use of weapons and armies, who possessed no wealth to corrupt anyone, was deliberately eliminated by an armed, wealthy, developed, powerful society that feared him and hated him simply because he criticized them too freely ! It's enough to make you lose all faith in justice, and all respect for citizens !

Eubulides : How can we understand why Socrates was targeted, he who always refused to take advantage of the power offered to him a thousand times, as well as the esteem and comfort it afforded him ? I wasn't present for the latest developments in Athens, but in my opinion, Socrates was indeed chosen as a scapegoat for Athens' difficulties and failures. Athens' crisis is the cause. It is struggling to recover from having fallen from its pedestal and, in just a few years, from having been lauded for unexpected victories, then thrown into the mud following even more unexpected defeats. To have been beaten by Sparta after having defeated Persia is a bit like winning against a lion only to be defeated by a flea ! A defeat as crushing as it was unexpected.

And for far too many years, Athens was led to glorify its superiority, to expect great riches from it, and to consider its well-being as a right. This demagoguery began with Pericles. He persuaded the Athenians that they were destined to dominate and to enrich themselves from this elevated position. It was also Pericles who founded social populism, which allowed the rich to no longer fear the wrath of the poor, the latter being occupied with numerous spectacles, invited to watch plays without paying, and above all, invited to participate in a caricature of popular power, performed as a play, or as a chorus. It was he who lowered the property requirements for archons, paid generous allowances to all citizens serving as jurors in the Heliaia, and instilled Athenian pride to an extreme degree by limiting Athenian citizenship to those with Athenian lineage from both sides of their family, instead of just through their father as before. This demagoguery was in no way accompanied by a reduction in social inequalities ; quite the contrary, it served to mask the major interests of his policy of conquest. The Peloponnesian War impoverished the population, largely due to Pericles' disastrous tactics. Trapped within the Long Walls, he allowed the Attic landscape to be devastated. Fields lay fallow, land speculation ran rampant, exacerbating the concentration of property ownership and the impoverishment of the people.

The "great" century of Pericles is over, well and truly over. Great is the uncertainty of the future. Athens has been evacuated, destroyed, rebuilt, and is once again threatened with occupation and destruction. And, almost worse than the destruction itself, there is the shame of defeat and the fear of what tomorrow will bring, now that wealth no longer accumulates on its own in Piraeus. Plague has followed the wars and civil wars. The suffering has been immense, and the threat stirs even more extreme emotions. Violence has spread to the heart of the city. In these wars, Athens allowed itself to fall under the control of military and political leaders who justified numerous atrocities against other Greek city-states, and the people's level of awareness has been lowered as a result. Killing has become commonplace in relations with other cities as well as between citizens. Human life no longer has the same value, in Athens as elsewhere. Each clan that comes to power is determined to physically eliminate the opposing clan. And the fight against Sparta completed the destruction of Athens.

– Phaedo : Athens' greatness stemmed from the weakening of Sparta, until then the strongest warrior city in Greece. Sparta's loss of preeminence was not solely due to wars, but primarily to revolutions. The Lacedaemonian island experienced a catastrophic earthquake. Following the Persian Wars, which had already contributed to discrediting the ruling classes in the eyes of the people, this provided an opportunity for an uprising against the government. The helots and the common people seized the opportunity to revolt. It was because Sparta was weakened that Athens enjoyed its golden age during the thirty years that followed. This is what Pericles benefited from. An aristocrat, he pursued a policy aimed at presenting himself as a leader of the people, who wanted to grant equal political rights to all citizens. The prosperity that was linked to the policy of grandeur (development of the fleet, colonization, large-scale trade and conquests) stabilized Athenian society, but it also made it even more unequal and unjust.

Athens, having become the strongest of the Greek city-states, sought to dominate Sparta instead of uniting as equals. And so, Athens was defeated by Sparta ! Even when internal and external peace was momentarily stabilized, the city remained scarred by the political and social crises of the years following the annihilation of its fleet in the port of Syracuse and its army on the Assinaros River, then a war that alienated all of Greece (the Decelian War), then, two years later, the triumph of the oligarchy, the restoration of democracy, military victories immediately followed by the execution of the victorious generals and then crushing defeats, the destruction of the Long Walls, the dissolution of the Maritime League, then the Thirty Tyrants, and once again democracy... This democracy is one where the masses are paid to attend meetings and spectacles that both resemble theatrical performances. The people are being whipped into a frenzy, pulled in every direction, but are they truly the ones making the decisions ? And, time and again, politicians have been appealing to the people without them knowing their true objectives. The people of Athens have suffered without understanding why. They are afraid without knowing where the next blow will come from. They distrust everything and everyone. Hence the ease with which a wounded public can be manipulated.

And Athens is all the more afraid now that it knows it is no longer protected by its walls, its fleet, its army. It is at the mercy of the four winds. And they are blowing from all sides : on one side the Gauls, on another the Persians, on a third the Etruscans or the Carthaginians. Xerxes and Darius have only launched the first assault from the East against Greece. A great migration from the banks of the Volga, reaching as far as India and Andalusia, cannot leave us unscathed. Coming from Central and Western Europe, the Keltoi (elsewhere called "Celts") are moving ever further south, toward our regions, at the head of groups of warriors. Isocrates is right : without the free union of the city-states, there is no future for Greece. Now, the power in Athens fears this union more than anything : it wants domination over the Greek city-states, it wants its revenge against Sparta. Today, it bows before Sparta only to raise its head again tomorrow and punish its enemies harshly... Of course, the situation of division was ludicrous : each city-state had its own gods, institutions, form of government, currency, justice system, calendar, and even its own year... A central power was necessary. But Athens doesn't convince the Greek city-states ; it imposes... that the collected money benefit only itself, that all trials take place in Athens, that the cities that wish to remain free be violently crushed... Under these conditions, Athens hates nothing more than a Socrates who exposes its weaknesses, its lies, its deceptions of the people, who unmasks its war aims as much as the hypocrisy of its politicians and the greed of its speculators...

Eubulides : Despite the end of the power crisis and the amnesty, Athens remained wounded in its very being and its pride : it no longer had a fleet, no shipyards, no money. The ruling classes needed to find scapegoats for this catastrophic and hopeless situation. To this end, Socrates represented the ideal culprit. While the pride of being Athenian was taken to extremes by demagogic politicians, Socrates declared that he was neither Athenian nor Greek, but a citizen of the world. Socrates then criticized Athens' military efforts, including those of the so-called glorious era, such as the years of Pericles. He denounced wars of conquest and only justified wars of defense. He saw no glory in killing other men in war.

We can downplay the risks posed by the harsh criticisms of Socrates and a small group of his followers, but it is the circumstances that make Socrates' debates appear as so many threats of destabilization. The people's weariness with the ruling classes could explode at any moment and find, in the group founded by Socrates, a revolutionary direction. In my opinion, the trial of Socrates was a product of Athens' defeat at the hands of Lysander. It was necessary to blame the free citizens for a defeat they themselves had predicted and fought against. The elimination of Socrates certainly did not solve a single one of the city's real problems. By condemning Socrates, Athens condemned itself to continue its bloody internal squabbles within Greece, a path that inevitably leads to weakening, defeat, and decline. This trend must be reversed, and it is up to us, here present, to undertake this task. That is why I consider Xenophon's initiative to be a good one and promising for the future. Another path is possible for Athens and for Greece, which will not achieve success without granting autonomy to the various city-states.

Let us not forget that we possess a multitude of talents, from strategist to sculptor, and from historian to lawyer. And I'm not even mentioning philosophers and historians. Among us, for example, are great generals, known for having established military strategies that will remain in the annals of war : Xenophon and Alcibiades, who were Athenian strategists, and Hermocrates, a great strategist from Syracuse. If we, the disciples of Socrates, manage to defend a common vision of the future of Greece and human society, this could have considerable consequences for the future. That is the whole point of this assembly.

Charmides : For my part, I am not pleased to have received this invitation to such a clandestine meeting. It may remind the Athenians that I am still a target, and it may seem all the more suspicious to the Athenian authorities given that former Athenian military leaders, now serving in foreign or hostile armies, are participating : Xenophon with Cyrus the Younger of Persia and, above all, Alcibiades with Sparta. Like me, the latter faked his death in Athens to avoid being pursued by his enemies. If information leaks from our meeting, not only will his life be threatened, but ours as well. His betrayal, in the midst of the war between Athens and Sparta, cannot be dismissed as mere self-defense, nor as a way to escape trial, even if he was indeed threatened with condemnation in Athens in the trial brought against him. Everyone in Athens remembers the incident with the statues of Hermes whose noses were broken off in the heart of the city. Whether this was a violent act attributable to Alcibiades and his group, or a provocation intended to harm him, I don't know. I don't want to put Alcibiades on trial, nor do I want to reproach Xenophon. The latter entered Cyrus's war effort a year before Socrates' death. Currently, all of Greece is talking about his exploits at the head of the Greek soldiers, the famous "Ten Thousand" whom he saved from disaster by organizing the longest retreat of all time. But the wars to which you invite your Greek warriors, my dear Xenophon, do nothing to advance the Greek cause, and your soldiers, however impressive their bravery and you your leadership, are merely diverted from our forces. As for Alcibiades, he is merely continuing to divide the Greeks, who were already divided enough without him. And I consider it extremely unwise to convene such a meeting, attended by Greek citizens with alliances other than Athens, at the very moment when Athens is suffering from an acute crisis of espionage… It is, at best, to recklessly endanger all his friends, and, at worst, to have decided to implicate us all in a genuine political conspiracy against Athens ! I wish to state that, whatever political agenda is presented to this assembly, I will not participate. Quite content to simply enjoy life and to be able to philosophize peacefully in my garden, I have had enough of politics and will henceforth adhere to the attitude of our master Socrates, which consisted of keeping oneself apart from the band of madmen enamored of the political platform, honors, and responsibilities.

Alcibiades : Xenophon, for my part, I thank you. You were kind enough to send us messages, bringing us together to talk about Socrates—all of us who were his students, his disciples, his friends. However, I find it very surprising that the crime Athens has just committed hasn't opened your eyes, neither you, Xenophon, who are still wondering about the causes of this crime, which you consider unexpected, nor you, Charmides, who fears only one thing : that the Athenians will think you a traitor for having been there, at a tribute to Socrates, alongside Xenophon and Alcibiades ! If I understand you correctly, I should fear for my life for having participated in this gathering and also fear implicating all our friends with me, but I believe they are old enough to have come knowingly ! For my part, I did indeed decide to let myself be presumed dead in Athens, given the number of people who wanted to get rid of me. It's clear that the Athens of today bears no resemblance to the one for which Socrates fought as a soldier, the one for which both he and I found ourselves at the head of the Council of Five Hundred in Athens, and which led us to command its armies. It is no longer the city that consciously placed its most revolutionary citizens at its head. It is no longer the city that wanted to liberate Greece and protect it from dangerous warlike neighbors, but the one that wants to dominate it by crushing Sparta and any rival Greek power. Socrates did not condone this, and that is why he was condemned to hemlock… To conceal this fact is to condone Athens' crime against the greatest of Athenians !

As for the accusations that Charmides levels against me, which are certainly widely circulated in Athens, I would like to remind everyone that, while Sparta and Athens are implacable enemies today, this has not always been the case. Indeed, it was their alliance that consistently led to great successes, for both cities and for all of Greece. It was at the head of the armies of Athens and Sparta, united with the other Greek cities, that Themistocles emerged victorious over the Persian armies at Salamis. Everyone wants to remember this, but also remember that later, due to Athens' refusal to accept the freedom of Greek cities, the rift led Themistocles, once acclaimed in Athens, to join the court of the Persian king... It was again Athens' political choices that led Xenophon to join Cyrus' army and lead his ten thousand Greek soldiers who followed him in a retreat that would become famous in history, particularly because of the three thousand kilometers they marched across Asia Minor... Why didn't Xenophon manage to be placed in command of Athens' troops ? Because in Athens, competence wasn't the priority, nor was the professionalism of the strategists ; it was the loud-mouthed politicians who led the armies. Of course, that's how I managed it myself, but that's because there was no other way to gain recognition...

Crito : You'll excuse me for briefly interrupting your discussion, but I wouldn't want our meeting, barely begun, to descend into quarrels unrelated to the subject that brings us together : the death of Socrates and the legacy of his ideas that now rests on our shoulders. First, I want to say that our emotion and our condemnation of the act that has just been committed against Socrates do not constitute a unilateral and sweeping accusation against Athens. It wasn't the entire citizenry, nor the whole government, that condemned Socrates, but only a court. Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that Socrates did nothing to defend himself and even willingly contributed to his own indictment through his actions. I say this because he wanted his friends to know it. He didn't want to fight in this trial or defend himself. He declared that his whole life was his defense and that he didn't need to justify himself. He told me several times to share this with you. Socrates refused my offer to advance the thirty minae he would have been willing to pay as a fine. To Apollodorus, who complained that the judgment was unjust, he replied, "Would you have preferred that I be justly condemned ? Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me." Indeed, he explained that the arguments of his slanderers, Anytus and Meletus, were so base and mendacious that they could not, after his death, damage his philosophy, or even tarnish it. At the trial, he may have appeared provocative, declaring that the only punishment he considered just would be for the court to grant him a lifetime annuity ! He refused to flee, as we suggested and using the means we had made available to him. Cebes, Simmias, and many others can attest to this. They can recount it better than I. Socrates rejected the plea written for him by Lysias, the most famous speechwriter of our time—and I say this without meaning to offend you, Lysias. Even though much of it is incomprehensible to me, I wish to share these facts with you, as he himself requested. He wanted you to know this so that you might reflect on the meaning of his final actions. I understand that Socrates possessed a personal courage that surpasses my own, but I cannot understand why he did not try to fight against the death that threatened his own life.

Apollodorus : By the dog ! I cannot allow it to be said, even by a friend as close as you, Crito, that Socrates participated in the causes of his own death. It shocks and revolts me ! Those who caused his death are murderers, and Socrates had nothing to do with it ! I know, Crito, that you helped Socrates many times during his lifetime and that your grief at his death is as great as mine. I know that after his death, all your efforts are aimed at preserving the thought of our master in writing, and you deserve our gratitude for that. However, this does not mean that your statements are accurate and reflect Socrates' point of view. Do not forget that even the act of putting Socrates' point of view into writing was always condemned by Socrates himself. He did not recognize himself in any of the texts that claimed to report his words. And, above all, he did not consider it wise to disseminate his ideas in writing in modern Athens. For me, what I would most like is for the participants of this meeting to tell us what Socrates taught them and what memory they have of it.

Menexenus : I wish to recount the last days of Socrates, which we shared with him in his prison, where he waited ten days after his death sentence. Every day, about ten of us friends were with him, discussing philosophy from morning till night. He knew that poison awaited him, that the hemlock would gradually penetrate his body, first paralyzing his limbs, then his heart. We were all completely devastated, drained by the thought of this dreadful end. As for him, he skipped about and chatted, as spry as a young man. He imparted his philosophical lessons to us, chatting as usual. But this time, the main lesson was right there before us : it was Socrates himself. At the peak of his mental and moral form, he demonstrated unparalleled boldness and intellectual audacity. I wish to recount this lesson in courage, not only for the participants in this gathering, but for the world, for posterity. No one should be unaware that there was a man like Socrates, of whom humanity has every reason to be proud. One might say : here is a man who talked a lot, but what great things did he accomplish ? A great book ? A great ship ? A great conquest ? A great battle ? A great empire ? Well, Socrates did none of these things ! He showed us that, despite the modesty of his person, his actions, and his words, human greatness is a conquest that deserves the noblest battles, and that it does not consist of crushing others.

Alcibiades : Socrates, you were our flute charmer. You never learned the flute, but your own flute, your words, charmed everyone—men, women, children—without them even realizing it. And then, they couldn't do without the sound of your flute, which you knew how to play with no other instrument than your magnanimity. Marsyas, on the other hand, used instruments when he charmed people with the power of his breath, and that's what we still do today when we play his melodies on the flute. Indeed, what Olympus played, I say, was from Marsyas, who was his teacher. And his melodies, whether played by a skilled artist or a poor flute player, are the only ones capable of deeply touching us and revealing those who need the gods and initiation, for these melodies are divine. You differ from him in only one respect : you need no instruments, and simple words suffice to produce the same effects. One thing is certain : when we hear another speaker, however gifted, deliver other speeches, it hardly interests anyone. But when it is you we hear, or when another reports your words, however mediocre he may be himself, and a man, or a woman, or a young man hears it, we are struck to the heart, a turmoil seizes us.

– Plato : I would like to say it in a few words : he was the wisest and most just of all men. Socrates, the son of Apollo, was chosen by God to bring his word to our ears ; the bees of Hymettus deposited their honey on his lips ; a young swan, flown from the altar of Eros, announced the coming of the philosopher ; speech was given to him to charm men and gods... We can never replace him, and we will never know, with each new question that comes to mind, what Socrates, who claimed to know nothing, would have said !

Socrates' interventions at his trial astonish and even seem provocative to some, but this overlooks what Socrates declared in the opening line of his second speech : "The judgment you have just pronounced, Athenians, has moved me little, and for many reasons ; besides, I expected what happened." Under these circumstances, Socrates had no reason not to consider the defense of his beliefs as essential, not his personal defense. This does not mean that he did not value his life, but that he was determined to remain steadfast in his beliefs to the very end, knowing that since a trial had been initiated with the Athenian authorities as its organizer, he would not be declared innocent. He certainly had no reason to accept that he had committed a wrong and deserved some form of punishment.

– Hermogenes : When I saw him discoursing on all sorts of subjects shortly before his trial, I said to him : "But shouldn't you, Socrates, also think about what you will say in your defense ?" and Socrates replied at first : "Don't you see that I have spent my whole life preparing my defense ?"

"How ?" I had asked.

"By living without ever committing any injustice, which is, in my opinion, the best way to prepare one's defense."

I said to him again : "Don't you think that the Athenian courts, seduced by eloquent speeches, often put innocent people to death and often acquitted guilty people whose speeches had moved or charmed them ?"

Socrates replied : "Yes, indeed ! By Zeus, and this is the second time I have tried to prepare my defense, but the voice of my daimon has opposed it."

"That's surprising ," I told him.

“Do you find it surprising that God himself judges it better for me to end my life now ? Don't you know that I won't concede to anyone that they have lived better than I have until this day ? For I know, and this is my greatest satisfaction, that I have always led a pious and righteous life, so much so that, holding myself in high esteem, I have always seen those who associated with me share the same sentiment. If, on the contrary, my life is prolonged, I am certain to see infallibly all the ills of old age arrive : my vision will be less clear, my hearing less well, my learning more difficult, and my forgetting of what I have learned more quickly. Now, if I feel myself declining and am dissatisfied with myself, how,” he continued, “could I still take pleasure in living ?” Perhaps, he added, it is also God who, in his goodness, grants me to end my days not only at the most opportune age, but also by the easiest path. For if I am condemned today, it is evident that I will be given to die the way that those who have dealt with this matter have judged the easiest, the least distressing for friends, the most likely to make the dying man mourned. Indeed, when one leaves no unpleasant or painful image in the minds of those present, and dies with a healthy body and a soul capable of showing tenderness, how could one not be missed ? It is therefore with good reason, he continued, that the gods opposed the preparation of my defense, when we thought we should seek at all costs the means to escape condemnation. If I had succeeded, it is clear that instead of ending my life today, I would have prepared for myself a death darkened by the sufferings of illness or old age, assailed by every evil at once and devoid of all pleasures. No, by Zeus, Hermogenes, he continued, if I must offend the jury by declaring all the advantages I believe I have obtained from gods and men, as well as my opinion of myself, I would rather die than basely beg for the favor of living longer and thus gain an existence far worse than death.

– Xenophon : Socrates was of a fairly advanced age and had very little time left to live ; he lost only the most painful part of life, that in which intelligence weakens in all men ; by renouncing it, he showed all the rigor of his soul ; he covered himself with glory by the uncommon truth, freedom and justice of his defense, as much as by the gentleness and courage with which he received the sentence of his death.

– Hermogenes : I tried to explain to Socrates the necessity of defending myself according to the customs of the court. He replied : "Well, Hermogenes, I have tried to devise a defense to present to my judges, but my intellect has prevented it. What can you do, if the gods deem it best for me to leave this life now ? If I die unjustly, it will be a shame for those who have unjustly caused my death. I am convinced that men will bear witness that I have never wronged anyone."

– Ichtyas : Socrates did perfectly well not to stoop to admitting faults, begging for mercy, or swearing that he would cease discussing his ideas with people, because, as he himself explained, it would have changed nothing in substance : "If I am condemned, it is not for lack of a speech in which Socrates laments, groans, and does and says a host of things that I consider unworthy of me, things that you are accustomed to hearing from other defendants. I would much rather die after having defended myself as I have than live by such baseness."

– Aristodemus : Many of us are astonished that Socrates maintained the same attitude, the same remarks, the same caustic wit at his trial, even though his life was at stake, as he had in his debates. This proves that we have completely misunderstood Socrates. It is to claim that for Socrates, it was simply a matter of pushing his interlocutors to their limits, forcing them to reveal their ideas to him and to the others present. In fact, it was something else entirely. Irony is a way of fighting to the bitter end against the ideology imposed by the ruling class, of demolishing it stone by stone. And, on the day of his trial, when the ruling class had engaged in open combat against him, we are supposed to expect this fighter to lay down his arms !

– Ctesippus : His defense at the trial was, however, clear :

“Anytos told you that you absolutely had to condemn me to death, because if I escaped, your sons would practice the teachings of Socrates and become completely corrupt ; even if you were to tell me : ‘Socrates, we will not listen to Anytos, and we will acquit you, but on one condition, that you will no longer spend your time examining people and philosophizing ; and if you are caught doing so, you will die' and if you were to acquit me on this condition, I would answer you : ‘Athenians, I am grateful to you and I love you, but, (…) as long as I have a breath of life, as long as I am capable of it, do not expect me to cease philosophizing, exhorting you and teaching you. To each one I meet, I will say what I am accustomed to saying : “How is it that you, excellent man, who are an Athenian and a citizen of the greatest city in the world and the most renowned for its wisdom and power, are not ashamed to devote all your efforts to amassing as much money as possible and to seeking reputation and honors, while your reason, your conscience, your search for truth, all that deserves to be constantly perfected, you deign not to take any care, any concern for ?” (…) Be assured that, if you put me to death, without regard for the man I claim to be, it is not me you will harm most, but yourselves. (…) But perhaps it seemed strange to you that I go about the streets, giving advice privately and meddling in the affairs of others, and yet dare not appear in public at official assemblies to offer advice to the republic. (…) No one lives very long if they publicly oppose you or openly try to prevent many injustices and illegalities from being committed in the state. If you truly want to fight for justice and if you want to live for a while, you must do so discreetly and without making a public spectacle of yourself. (…) I am not a man to speak for money and to remain silent if I am not given any. (…) The arguments I can offer in my defense are limited to these. But perhaps there will be someone among you who will be indignant, remembering that the accused must pray and beg the judges with tears, trying to soften them up as much as possible with his children and friends, while I naturally want to do none of that, even though I may believe myself to be in the face of the greatest danger. (...) For my honor, for yours, and for that of the entire city, it does not seem proper to me to resort to any of these means. (...) You know, Athenians, that I have never held any magistracy, and that I have only been a senator. The Antiochid tribe, to which I belong, was just then in charge of the Prytaneum, when, against all the laws,You persisted in simultaneously prosecuting the ten generals who had neglected to bury the bodies of those who were about to perish in the naval battle of Arginusae ; an injustice you acknowledged and subsequently repented of. On this occasion, I was the only one of the prytaneis who dared to oppose the violation of the laws and vote against you. Despite the orators who were preparing to denounce me, despite your threats and cries, I preferred to run this risk with the law and justice than to consent with you to such a great iniquity, for fear of chains or death. This event took place while the democratic government still existed. When the oligarchy came to power, the Thirty summoned me, the fifth member of the council, to the Tholos and ordered me to bring Leo the Salaminian from Salamis to be put to death. For they gave similar orders to many people, to compromise as many as possible ; and so I proved, not in words, but by deeds, that I cared nothing for death, if you'll pardon the vulgar expression, and that my sole concern was to do nothing impious or unjust. All the power of the Thirty, so terrible then, could gain nothing from me against justice. Leaving the Tholos, the other four went to Salamis, taking Leon with them, and I retired to my house ; and there can be no doubt that my death would have followed my disobedience, had that government not been abolished soon afterward. This is what a great number of witnesses can attest to. Do you think, then, that I would have lived so many years if I had meddled in the affairs of the republic, and that, as a virtuous man, I had trampled everything underfoot to think only of defending justice ? Far from it, Athenians ; neither I, nor any other man, could have done that. Throughout my life, whenever I have taken part in public affairs, you will find me the same ; the same again in my private relationships, never yielding anything to anyone regarding justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers try to pass off as my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my mission, I have refused no one that pleasure.The Thirty summoned me, the fifth, to the Tholos and ordered me to bring Leo the Salaminian from Salamis to be put to death. They gave similar orders to many people, hoping to compromise as many as possible. And so I proved, not with words, but with deeds, that I cared nothing for death, if you'll pardon the vulgar expression, and that my sole concern was to do nothing impious or unjust. All the power of the Thirty, so terrible at that time, could gain nothing from me against justice. Leaving the Tholos, the other four went to Salamis and brought Leo, while I retired to my home. And there can be no doubt that my death would have followed my disobedience had that government not been abolished soon afterward. This is what a great number of witnesses can attest. Do you think, then, that I would have lived so many years if I had meddled in the affairs of the republic, and that, as a virtuous man, I had trampled everything underfoot to think only of defending justice ? Far from it, Athenians ; neither I, nor any other man, could have done that. Throughout my life, whenever I have taken part in public affairs, you will find me the same ; the same again in my private relationships, never yielding anything to anyone regarding justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers try to pass off as my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my mission, I have refused no one that pleasure.The Thirty summoned me, the fifth, to the Tholos and ordered me to bring Leo the Salaminian from Salamis to be put to death. They gave similar orders to many people, hoping to compromise as many as possible. And so I proved, not with words, but with deeds, that I cared nothing for death, if you'll pardon the vulgar expression, and that my sole concern was to do nothing impious or unjust. All the power of the Thirty, so terrible at that time, could gain nothing from me against justice. Leaving the Tholos, the other four went to Salamis and brought Leo, while I retired to my home. And there can be no doubt that my death would have followed my disobedience had that government not been abolished soon afterward. This is what a great number of witnesses can attest. Do you think, then, that I would have lived so many years if I had meddled in the affairs of the republic, and that, as a virtuous man, I had trampled everything underfoot to think only of defending justice ? Far from it, Athenians ; neither I, nor any other man, could have done that. Throughout my life, whenever I have taken part in public affairs, you will find me the same ; the same again in my private relationships, never yielding anything to anyone regarding justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers try to pass off as my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my mission, I have refused no one that pleasure.Never yielding to anyone against justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers try to pass off as my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my mission, I have refused no one this pleasure.Never yielding to anyone against justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers try to pass off as my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my mission, I have refused no one this pleasure.That's extremely clear !

Socrates had no choice : either denigrate himself or be eliminated by Athens. The source of Socrates' misfortunes is not to be found in his own attitude, but in the crisis in Athens...

Aeschines : I agree, and one cannot understand Socrates' condemnation without going to the root of Athens' extremely painful defeat. Sparta's victory was devastating for Athens politically, socially, and morally. By the peace treaty, Athens was spared and retained its walls, except for the Long Walls and the fortifications of Piraeus. What saved these walls was not Athens' strength, but rather the fact that Sparta was now more wary of Thebes and Corinth, cities that had wanted to raze Athens and, at the very least, its walls. The remaining ships were surrendered, except for twelve, and the exiles were allowed to return. Athens, placed under Spartan domination, became an ally of Sparta. Lysander imposed the oligarchic Council of Thirty (Critias, Theramenes, etc.) there. They themselves appointed the 500 members of the Council as well as the magistrates and surrounded themselves with a guard of 300 whip-bearers, later supplemented by a Spartan garrison. The Thirty began by massacring the sycophants and demagogues. Then, partly for financial reasons, they targeted the metics and wealthy citizens (1,500 people were massacred). A civic body of 3,000 citizens, the only ones authorized to remain in Athens and enjoy legal protections, was created. Theramenes, who had negotiated Athens' surrender, opposed Critias. Considered too moderate, he drank hemlock. Lysias and his brother Polemarchus were arrested by the Thirty. Polemarchus was put to death, but Lysias escaped. The 20,000 slaves in the Laurium mines revolted and deserted. Athens has lost its sources of income, its maritime superiority, and its self-confidence.

Sparta's victory did not bring an end to the conflicts in Greece, nor did it usher in a new period of unification and prosperity under Spartan rule. After the Peloponnesian War, while Athens enjoyed relative stability, many Greek city-states were torn apart by internal strife between wealthy citizens, supporters of the oligarchy, and the poor, who demanded debt relief and land redistribution. Poverty and civil wars led to a surge in the number of Greek mercenaries. These men, easily recruited by anyone with money or, failing that, organized into roving bands that lived by plunder, constituted a significant source of political instability.

The satrap Tissaphernes demanded the submission of the Ionian cities and laid siege to Kyme. The Greeks of Asia Minor appealed to Sparta, which sent the harmost Thibron at the head of 5,000 men, reinforced by 5,000 survivors from the retreat of the Ten Thousand commanded by Xenophon. Sparta sent an ultimatum to the Eleans ordering them to grant autonomy to their perioico cities. Faced with the Eleans' refusal, King Agis II led two campaigns a year ago, which forced Elis to submit.

In Athens, Thrasybulus, at the head of the rebellious democrats entrenched in the fortress of Phyle, seized Piraeus. Critias was killed at the Battle of Munichia, where the democrats were victorious. The Thirty were forced to retreat to Eleusis, whose population they had previously massacred. The Ten, to whom they had left power in Athens, appealed in vain to Sparta. King Pausanias I of Sparta intervened and, disagreeing with Lysander, urged the Athenians toward reconciliation. Democracy was restored, and the moderates took power. An amnesty law was passed, and Athenians who wished to do so could emigrate to Eleusis (August-September). The legislative procedure was modified to prevent the return of the oligarchy. Thrasybulus attempted to grant citizenship to the metics who had fought against the Thirty. Archinos brought an action against him for illegality and won his case.
It was in this unhealthy political climate that Athens found itself for ten years and, if it has just ended in catastrophe, with the condemnation and elimination of Socrates, the evil has developed for at least eight years, where the powers have constantly overstepped the bounds, discredited themselves, fallen, and been replaced by other even more dictatorial powers, resting on an even smaller fraction of the population.

– Phaedo : The people of Athens were not only victims of their Persian or Spartan neighbors. They were far more victimized by their own internal wars. Political passions had deplorable results : hatred of all against all. Each faction, upon seizing power, was unable to stop the cycle of violence and revenge. Critias was the last in a long line of leaders who made the elimination of opponents a method of governance, even going so far as to eliminate the most moderate members of their own power. He was eventually overthrown, notably by Anytus, one of Socrates' accusers. Socrates restored a kind of democracy, but he too sought revenge. Critias was killed in the fighting. Charmides fled and feigned death for over a year to extinguish the threat of assassination. Alcibiades faked his death, claiming he was assassinated by the Persians in Phrygia, to protect himself from the vengeance of certain Athenian citizens. This is why he doesn't want his presence here to be known, because once he is found alive, he won't be alive for long. I therefore appeal to the discretion of each of us, which is, of course, in everyone's best interest, because such a gathering would quickly be interpreted as a conspiracy in the current climate of political madness in Athens. The fact that Chaerephon and Thucydides have been eliminated is a testament to this. Plato himself has had to leave the city and is trying to present a version of the master's theses that reconciles the city with him. Xenophon still enjoys a place in Athens thanks to the aura he gained throughout Greece from his fight at the head of the "Ten Thousand" soldiers who fought in Persia. He was all the more glorified because he then brought back the five thousand survivors to protect the Ionian cities against the attack of the satrap Tissaphernes who had laid siege to Kyme.

– Epigenes : It seems to me that Cleon is primarily responsible for Athens' choices that led it to refuse peace with Sparta when it was offered. The capture of Sphacteria and the surrender of the Lacedaemonians had caused a veritable earthquake in the Greek world. Sparta's land military superiority was so severely challenged that the proud city once again proposed a "white peace" to Athens. Athens refused again under Cleon's influence. He is highly symbolic of a new class of politicians from the lower classes who use their popularity as tribunes to manipulate public sentiment in ways contrary to the common good.

Aristodemus : Cleon manipulated the people of Athens with his demagogic methods. This does not mean that the people were incapable of regaining their composure and turning against their leader. The most famous example is the suppression of the revolt in the city of Mytilene, which was in rebellion against Athens. A single courageous man, Diodotus, managed, the day after the decision to suppress the city by destroying it and killing its inhabitants, to sway public opinion in the assembly of citizens by declaring : “Let us refrain from severely punishing people who revolt ; let us ensure that they do not have the desire to rebel. Let us punish only those responsible for the crime committed.” The people followed him, reversing their vote of the previous day and thus saving the people of Mytilene…

– Plato : I believe that Athens did indeed experience a decline linked to the behavior of its leaders. To recall the criticisms Socrates leveled against Pericles, remember Socrates' dialogue with Callicles :

Socrates : Now, try to remember, and, regarding the illustrious men you mentioned a little while ago, tell me if you still think they were good citizens ? (…) So when Pericles began to speak to the people, the Athenians were in a worse state than when he addressed them for the last time.

Callicles : Perhaps.

Socrates : (…) Do we say that the Athenians, under the influence of Pericles, improved, or, on the contrary, that they were corrupted by him ?

Callicles : You must have heard that in the Spartan party, among the men with torn ears, Socrates !

Socrates : In that case, here is something I have not heard about, but which I know perfectly well, and so do you. At the beginning, Pericles had a good reputation among the Athenians (…) On the other hand, at the end of Pericles' life, when the citizens of Athens had become, thanks to him, good men, they voted against him for theft and practically condemned him to death, because they obviously thought he was a scoundrel.

Callicles : So what ? Is that a reason to say that Pericles was bad ?

Socrates : You agree that, among our contemporaries, there is not a single one who has had a good policy, but despite all that you choose those we have just been talking about.

This dialogue clearly shows that Socrates reproached Pericles for having corrupted the Athenians by giving them mythical goals of enrichment. The role of the political leader is clearly established here by Socrates : governing involves educating the people, and I believe that if this meeting has a purpose, it is precisely to understand how to train this class of philosophical leaders capable of educating the people in justice, virtue, and the scientific management of the city. Philosophy must be placed at the center of the city, and the city must be the center of the state.

Euclid : Your conception, Plato, proposes only states founded around a small city-state, self-sufficient and thriving. In my opinion, this in no way meets the needs of a city like Athens. You idealize the qualities of a small city-state founded on enlightened leaders, but history has decided otherwise. And, first of all, it's far too short-sighted : Athens, drunk with the thrill of conquest, wasn't born with Pericles. It was long before that the Greeks were intoxicated by their victories and that Hellas (which some call Greece) experienced considerable expansion, stretching from the northern, southern, and western coasts of the Black Sea, through Asia Minor, Greece itself—including the Aegean islands—to Sicily and southern Italy, then along the shores of the Mediterranean, reaching Cyrene in Libya, Marseille, and some coastal sites in Spain. This initial colonization had the sole purpose of acquiring land. Things would be very different in the time of Pericles, when the Greeks focused solely on large-scale trade.

It is naive to believe that, in a past as glorious as it was honest, Greece would have united only for self-defense. The Trojan War had far more objectives than saving Menelaus's marital honor. It was about seizing the Dardanelles Strait—a crucial maritime passage for international trade, which we call the Hellespont—and also the treasures of the city of Troy, taking advantage of the internal turmoil weakening the city and Trojan power. Allowing Troy to flourish meant preparing for years in which this society would become a conqueror throughout the region. The question of colonial, commercial, maritime, and military conquest predates Pericles. Of course, one can accuse Pericles and his successors of cultivating the Athenians' dreams of grandeur, only to deceive them about their true aims, which had nothing to do with the well-being of the citizens. However, we must not forget what led Athens to this policy of conquering the seas, and then foreign territories and riches. It is not solely any one politician who is to blame, whether his name was Pericles or Cleon, or even Alcibiades. What would Athens be without this policy of conquest ?

The truth is that the inhabitants of Athens, reduced to relying on the income from the surrounding countryside, would quickly starve to death. The meager wheat fields of Cephisus and Eleusis, Marathon and Mesogeia, would not suffice to feed 400,000 Athenians, whether citizens, metics, or slaves. Athens must constantly import. It needs grain from Euboea, Egypt, the shores of the Black Sea, and Italy. Where would it find the wood and iron for its ships ? And to pay for its buildings, its palaces and statues, its standard of living, could it be content with exporting its olive groves and its wine, a wine that was far from competing with those of Thrace, Chios, and Samos ! If Athens did not exploit the silver mines of Laurium, it would even be condemned to charity... It is not enough to glorify the ancient Athens of the farmers. For its growth, Athens, like all of Greece, needed to venture onto the seas. It was inevitable that this growth would clash with Persia, itself embarked on a quest for world domination. Buying and selling, international trade, and wars were the price to pay. Otherwise, one had to accept returning to domination, becoming a victim of the wars of powerful neighbors, and groaning as a slave to other powers. It is true that Socrates cultivated modesty and simplicity, asking everyone if they lived such a life because it was essential for them. He was shocked by the increase in inequality that had followed the successes of Athens and Greece. Instead of fewer poor people, there were more. Instead of fewer slaves, their numbers grew astonishingly. And some Greek citizens became owners of an unbelievable number of slaves, to the point that the status of domestic slaves was completely transformed. Instead of Athens' domination over all of Greece becoming less and less oppressive, it became increasingly heavy and violent. To such an extent that Athenian policy became unpopular not only in Sparta and its allied cities, not only throughout Greece, but in Athens itself. This was the basis of Socrates' political and social challenge, and this was also his downfall. For Athens faced a dilemma : to be a great international trading power or to perish.

– Phaedo Athens had good reason to fear a revolutionary leader like Socrates, especially given the discrediting of the ruling classes. Various city-states had recently experienced numerous revolutionary situations, and Athens was apprehensive about the consequences of a revolution in such a large and wealthy city—one with a large impoverished population and glaring inequalities. Indeed, the more numerous the city-states became, the more difficult it was to govern them stably and sustainably. The reasons for revolutions and the collapse of local powers are manifold. At the root of it lies a social imbalance : too great a disparity between the richest and poorest classes, and too few middle classes. Then there is the system of political domination : when the inhabitants are not only unequal in wealth but also suffer inequality in all aspects of life, including justice and politics. Society can then remain stagnant for several years, and when it does stir, it is suddenly and violently, because the causes of discontent could only accumulate until they became explosive. If, in addition, a fraction of free citizens have no access to decision-making, if slaves have no chance of ever being freed, if foreigners have no possibility of becoming citizens, then certainly the ruling classes profit at the expense of most citizens and inhabitants, but this power is fragile, and the rupture can be violent and profound. The break can destroy political power and can even attack social power, impose the redistribution of wealth, and permanently disrupt the mode of production. The changes resulting from revolutions may be purely political, but they can also be social, for example, by displacing large landowners in favor of merchants. There is also the risk that the most oppressed will take advantage of the situation to challenge the system of exploitation. Slaves can free themselves. Foreigners and other foreigners can overthrow the government. The changes brought about by revolutions can be primarily political, as in Sparta, with Lysander abolishing the monarchy, or King Pausanias suppressing the ephorate, or, in Epidamnus, the establishment of a council to give a voice to the phylarchs. The result of the revolt can also be anarchy, which ultimately devastates the inhabitants to the point that they subsequently allow a tyranny to be imposed upon them, as in Syracuse, Thebes, and Rhodes. In Megara, it ended with the victory of the oligarchic party. Initially, there were uprisings and seditions against the injustices committed by the regime and the ruling classes. This sometimes also occurs following military defeats that have discredited them.As in Tarentum, following a defeat against the Iapyges, many prominent citizens perished. The ruling classes were then forced to concede to a democracy. Similarly, in Argos, after the Laconian Cleomenes had many citizens killed, the regime had to grant citizenship to many perioeci. In Athens, the ruling classes were worried about popular movements. They knew, for example, that the inhabitants of Piraeus were more radical, more hostile to the oligarchy and the dictatorship, than those of the city of Athens. Sometimes, revolutions arise from seemingly minor events that act as a trigger. This happened in Syracuse following a quarrel between two young people from the ruling class, who had a falling out over love. This sparked a power struggle among members of the government that had significant consequences, leading to political upheaval and even sedition. At Delphi, too, the origin of the unrest was a dispute over a marriage. The prospective groom, citing an omen that had rejected his bride, was put to death by her parents. This resulted in enormous disorder. Similarly, at Mytilene, a disagreement over heiresses led to such chaos that it sparked a rebellion against the regime and a war against the Athenians. The same occurred among the Phocians and at Epidamnus. In these circumstances, those excluded from political life took advantage of the situation to challenge their position or to change the regime. Wars played an even greater role in this type of regime transformation. After the victory at Salamis, the number and political influence of sailors increased, and they worked in favor of democratic regimes in Athens, while the Areopagus council worked against them. In Syracuse, too, the people, who had been the architects of victory in the war against the Athenians, imposed a democracy. In Argos, the opposite occurred : the notables, having gained influence following the Battle of Mantinea against the Spartans, attempted to overthrow the popular regime.These conflicts sparked a power struggle among members of the government, with significant consequences leading to political upheaval and even sedition. At Delphi, too, the unrest stemmed from a marriage dispute. The prospective groom, citing an omen that had rejected his bride, was executed by her parents, resulting in widespread disorder. Similarly, at Mytilene, a disagreement over heiresses led to such chaos that it sparked a rebellion against the regime and a war against the Athenians. The same occurred among the Phocians and at Epidamnus. In these circumstances, those excluded from political life seized the opportunity to challenge their positions or to change the regime. Wars, in particular, played a significant role in this type of regime transformation. After the victory at Salamis, the number and political influence of the sailors increased, and they supported democratic regimes in Athens, while the Areopagus council opposed them. In Syracuse, too, the people, who had been instrumental in the victory against the Athenians, established a democracy. In Argos, the opposite occurred : the notables, having gained power following the Battle of Mantinea against the Spartans, attempted to overthrow the popular government.These conflicts sparked a power struggle among members of the government, with significant consequences leading to political upheaval and even sedition. At Delphi, too, the unrest stemmed from a marriage dispute. The prospective groom, citing an omen that had rejected his bride, was executed by her parents, resulting in widespread disorder. Similarly, at Mytilene, a disagreement over heiresses led to such chaos that it sparked a rebellion against the regime and a war against the Athenians. The same occurred among the Phocians and at Epidamnus. In these circumstances, those excluded from political life seized the opportunity to challenge their positions or to change the regime. Wars, in particular, played a significant role in this type of regime transformation. After the victory at Salamis, the number and political influence of the sailors increased, and they supported democratic regimes in Athens, while the Areopagus council opposed them. In Syracuse, too, the people, who had been instrumental in the victory against the Athenians, established a democracy. In Argos, the opposite occurred : the notables, having gained power following the Battle of Mantinea against the Spartans, attempted to overthrow the popular government.

But most revolutions in Greek city-states occurred to overthrow a dictator. In Chalcis, the people overthrew the tyrant Phoxos. In Ambracia, the people drove out the tyrant Periander. And so on… A very large number of city-states experienced revolutions against tyrants. Most were more or less successful, and in any case, they forced changes in the mode of political leadership and even a redistribution of roles. Oligarchies, where the number of those who benefited from power was too small, were particularly destabilized, as happened in Marseille, Istros, Heraclea, Cnidus, Erythrae, and many other cities. Athens experienced this type of situation under the dictatorship of the Thirty and under the Four Hundred. In other situations that provoked sedition against an oligarchy, we must note errors by the ruling classes in the administration of justice, which stirred popular unrest. This is what happened in Thebes and Heraclea after accusations of adultery. In each case, the dictator, Archias, and Evenion were even publicly pilloried ! In Cnidus and Chios, members of the government prevented sedition by overthrowing the oligarchy in time to stop the revolution from developing. The excesses of tyrants were often the trigger, as in the revolt against the Pisistratids, launched after the tyrant slandered Harmodius, or the plot against Periander, tyrant of Ambracia, which originated from an insult he hurled at his favorite. Many seditions against the dictator stemmed from sexual assault : the revolt against Philip led by Pausanias, the revolt of Derdas against Amyntas the Younger, and the revolt of Crataeus against Archelaus are examples of this. Hatred, contempt, and atrocities are the triggering factors. But revolution always presupposes that a class of inhabitants is revolted by its fate, as in Sparta with the Helots, and also with the Parthenians, Spartan citizens excluded from power. The aims of revolutions were social and political : in Lacedaemon, those burdened by the war demanded a redistribution of the lands of the island of Sparta.

War has another effect on revolutions in that it teaches people how to use weapons, sometimes forcing them to arm more inhabitants than just the soldiers, and even more than the citizens or free men alone. It compels dictatorial regimes to loosen their grip, creates a new mixing of classes, causes greater poverty, eliminates the economic and social opportunities of peacetime, and discredits the ruling classes due to defeats. The sacrifices made during war justify political and social changes, which in turn give rise to new demands, sometimes turning violent. The fear of repression has diminished because people have risked their lives so easily during wartime. Tyrannies and monarchies have experienced numerous revolutions, but so have democracies, because inequalities and injustices are by no means eliminated within them. The current crisis in Athens is a stark demonstration of this.

Apollodorus : All these analyses and explanations of the misfortunes that befall us are well-intentioned and helpful, but they won't prevent me from thinking that our suffering stems from humanity, from its vices, its violence, its unreasonable ambitions, its greed, its corruption, its weaknesses. Power has become what it is today because of the lust for power. Isn't simply pointing out that Socrates didn't suffer from this affliction an admission that it is widespread among humankind ? Similarly, can we not acknowledge the taste for luxury, avarice, or the madness of accumulating wealth ? If people were educated from childhood to appreciate what is good, these things would happen much less frequently. If the State played its role as guarantor of freedoms, of the virtue of citizens in positions of power, and of respect for the rights of all, abuses might exist, but they would be swiftly condemned and combated, whereas today they are encouraged. If the ruling classes agreed to limit their pursuit of wealth, the class struggle would never reach the extremes of revolutions and counter-revolutions…

Aeschines : You're not entirely right, nor entirely wrong, Apollodorus. Society rests on individuals, on their aspirations, their strengths, and their weaknesses. However, the mode of production, the relationships between large groups of people, the classes, the system, and political and social history do not depend primarily on individuals and their qualities. If the system needs a particular flaw, it will find and cultivate it. But the same will be true for the opposite quality or flaw. Society is not primarily determined by individual qualities or flaws. It is the large classes, founded on economic criteria, that are decisive. By building "Athenian democracy," Cleisthenes had broken the ancient tribal organization, but this only reinforced the weight of social differences !

Did Socrates want to highlight the class struggle ? Let me simply quote him : "How can anyone claim that there are no social classes with opposing interests among the free men of Athens, when some barely have enough to eat and others possess enough to be among those who perform the liturgies, that is to say, they own at least three or four talents. It takes an average Athenian more than ten years to earn one talent ! As for a mine concessionaire, he can own around one hundred and sixty talents !!!"

The political crises that Greece has experienced may seem to stem from this or that head of state, this or that political regime, this or that war, but in fact, they are crises linked to the system of domination having reached its limits. They are the product of class struggles. Of course, the wars were devastating, but above all, they revealed the internal weaknesses of these societies. The political crises led us from revolts to tyrannies, by way of supposedly democratic disorder. But the underlying cause is social and economic destabilization. And first, there was the loss of economic and social importance of the old ruling class, the destabilization of the landed aristocracy through the large-scale development of crafts and commerce, and then the development of money, international trade, and speculation. Money circulates rapidly, and new fortunes appear in a short time. From then on, land ownership was no longer the sole or primary source of wealth, certainly not the fastest. New economic conditions brought about new classes that claimed to lead society, and the classes that lived solely by their labor seized the opportunity to insert themselves into the debate. Everywhere, revolt was brewing. Small farmers were ruined by imported agricultural products. They were forced into debt and fell under a new form of dependence on the wealthy. In Athens, for example, independent hectemorian peasants had to hand over one-sixth of their harvest to their lords. The poor peasants thus opposed the large landowners, the wealthy eupatrids, and demanded land redistribution and the abolition of debts. The reformers' only aim was to deceive the exasperated working classes. Everywhere, reformers emerged : Zaleucus in Locri, Charondas in Catania, Pythagoras in Croton, and, of course, Draco and then Solon in Athens. They did not, of course, abolish class struggle, but they regulated and tempered it to prevent revolution from spreading beyond the city-states. Subsequently, the crisis led to the establishment of popular tyrannies, which diverted discontent against the ruling classes toward the domination of a strongman who sometimes managed to capture popular sympathy. This was the case with Pisitratus in Athens, Polycrates in Samos, Thrasybulus in Miletus, and Phalaris in Agrigento. Their dictatorships aimed to silence the quarrels within the ruling classes in order to better appease the common people. But tyranny was only a temporary remedy to the crisis, and the aristocratic regimes emerged even weaker and more discredited. And it was Cleisthenes who developed a solution to deceive the people while maintaining the domination of these same ruling classes. He invented Athenian democracy ! He himself was an aristocrat.A worthy scion of the illustrious and powerful Alcmaeonid family, he established what he called isonomia, or equality before the law, the aim of which was to ensure social and political stability. He instituted the council of 500 prytaneis, the circulation of power among the prytaneis, and the selection of the prytaneis by lot. While ostensibly giving a voice to the people, he actually provided a legislative foundation for an institution entirely detached from the population : the State. The individuals who hold state office change, but the State's continuity endures. What did Socrates think of democracy ? He made no secret of it and declared it openly :"The government was once the same as it is now, an aristocracy ; such is the political form under which we still live, and have almost always lived. Some call it a democracy, others something else, according to their taste ; but it is truly an aristocracy, with the consent of the people. We have never ceased to have kings, sometimes by right of succession, sometimes by right of vote."

Antisthenes : Changing the political regime is an illusion as long as people live to accumulate wealth, that's what Socrates said. He went much further than many "critics" of the system, who are afraid to confront the illusions of the people, unwilling to alienate the average citizen, when they aren't actually trying to flatter them with their words. It is the people who have been corrupted, not just the ruling classes, even if the latter are the direct architects of this corruption. Having considered that Socrates wanted to eliminate those who surpass others in wealth, a number of the wealthy and powerful decided that it was necessary to eliminate those who surpass others in social and political intelligence, namely individuals like Socrates himself. Socrates was perfectly aware that his social and political stances could make him a target of the ruling classes' hatred, he who openly declared to someone as corrupt and connected to power as Callicles : "Am I aware that I may risk being condemned for my ideas ?" I would be truly mad, Callicles, if I thought that, in our city, one could, depending on the circumstances, be safe from such a fate ! (...) Of course, if I were condemned to death, it wouldn't be strange at all ! And do you want me to tell you why I have this impression ? (...) I think I am one of the few Athenians, if not the only one, who is interested in what the art of politics truly is.

It infuriates me to hear people say that Socrates was an innocent, a bland, harmless, and insignificant philosopher, that he wasn't an atheist, a sophist, a revolutionary, aggressive towards the ruling classes, or dangerous. Isn't that a way of saying that if he were a sophist, we would have been right to ban him, condemn him, kill him ? And if he were an atheist philosopher, an anti-slavery advocate, and hostile to the ruling classes, then he deserved to die ? Well, stop crying : he deserved the hatred of the ruling classes ! And that doesn't stop us from mourning him, nor from hoping that his ideas will triumph over those same ruling classes…

Of course, many believed that Athenian democracy was more than just a cover for an oligarchy, but this was not the case with Socrates. He never belonged to the category of politicians who present themselves as good shepherds of the people, whom they consider their flock. These politicians tell us a pretty tale in which all it would take is to gather the hares and the lions in the same democratic assembly. This way, the lions could be convinced that they are in the minority and that the majority supports equality between hares and lions. The hares would not become lions, nor vice versa : they would simply be equal in rights. After a brief moment of astonishment, the real lions would roar and pounce on their prey, reminding the democratic hares who eats and who is eaten. The hares will never succeed in convincing the lions, but there will always be a few chatterers among the hares who claim that something can still be done to democratically persuade the lions ! Since Socrates never gave any quarter to democratic illusions, the ruling classes have always harbored hatred for our philosopher. He told the wealthy, who gorge themselves : "One must eat to live, not live to eat." He didn't even defend any knowledge other than the official Athenian knowledge. We, by calling ourselves disciples of Socrates, are not obligated to defend any kind of established knowledge, since he himself said he knew nothing, thus denouncing all the supposed holders of eternal truths.

Aeschines : Socrates didn't say he knew nothing, but declared : "I don't know the extent of my ignorance. People think they know what they don't know," which is very different. This means that my knowledge doesn't allow me to determine the limit of my ignorance, because the boundary between the domain of my ignorance and that of my knowledge is unknown to me. Many see this as a statement that humankind is very ignorant. But Socrates also says the exact opposite : sometimes people know things they don't know or can't understand, and these must certainly be sought deep within oneself. Socrates therefore affirms that we are ignorant of both the extent of our ignorance and the extent of our knowledge...

Was Antisthenes, or Socrates, a sophist ? Socrates is not a sophist because he engages in dialogue. He practices exchange with his interlocutor, even the least competent. He does not aim to dominate, direct, or convince them. He does not seek to dazzle or overwhelm them, but to explore with them. What do the sophists do ? Conversely, they compose speeches designed to dazzle with the strength of their argumentation and the beauty of their style. They move us and, in doing so, persuade us.
Socrates does not engage in discourse ; he questions. He rarely makes assertions. He proceeds with short answers and does not aim for ingenuity but for rational rigor. He rejects stylistic flourishes.

– Terpsion : Socrates' "I know nothing" doesn't mean I cultivate ignorance, but rather that I know nothing other than what my questions reveal to me. Each of us remembers hearing him repeat that progress is only possible through questioning others and ourselves. Understanding the world advances only through successive inquiries. And each inquiry involves me personally. I cannot be satisfied with the answers of others. Even in highly advanced scientific fields, I only progress by questioning myself, based on what others have put forward or on my own observations of the world. Seeking answers within my own mind is truly the work of an explorer in uncharted territory. For our master, Socrates, there were several conditions for beginning to philosophize. It was necessary to forget what we thought we knew definitively, that is to say, to be ready for a general questioning, to make ourselves capable of marveling at everything, that is to say, to love observing, not to seek our immediate interest, but to want to reach the truth whatever the result, not to bow down to men who claim to possess knowledge, nor to those who hold power or money.

– Aeschines : For Socrates, knowledge as an accumulation of facts is worthless, or at least, it doesn't replace personal reflection. Each person has their own questions. The answer can be very different from one person to another, from one society to another, from one class to another. Socrates didn't believe there was only one concept of the good. He simply observed that people were able to communicate through language because they shared something through words. And it was this something he sought, because it seemed to him to represent deeper truths than immediate images. A definitive morality for everyone is not in Socrates' mind, contrary to your view, Plato. Defining it and then imposing it on everyone was even further from his conception. Personal morality must be developed by each individual, but this, according to Socrates, is not enough to resolve the question of the goals of society as a whole. Society doesn't exist once and for all, nor is it as people wish it to be. Plato, you try to bridge this vast gap between individuals and society by using states that correspond to small city-states, but the leap from individuals to society is nonetheless significant. Society is not the sum of its parts, and it's not enough for each individual to strive for virtuous morality for society to be organized in the same way. Socrates didn't shy away from considering the question in broad, social, and political terms, but he didn't do so entirely publicly, and certainly not in writing.

Socrates once had the opportunity to play a public political role. Under threat of death, Athens rallied in a final surge of resolve, promising, at Socrates' initiative, citizenship to metics and slaves to build a fleet that defeated Callicratidas at the Battle of Arginusae. This success, however, was marred by the execution of the victorious generals (including Pericles the Younger and Thrasyles). Athens, in a fit of anger under pressure from demagogues, thus eliminated its own best generals. It was in condemnation of these decisions that Socrates withdrew permanently from public political life.

Socrates' refusal to participate in public life and commit his thoughts to writing was not primarily philosophical, but political. He was not silent, but he did not disseminate his philosophical teachings in writing for political reasons. This was neither a fear nor a rejection of politics on his part. He had his own goals and, consequently, his own political method. This was not discretion in general, since he had distinguished himself by his opposition to power and his refusal to participate in it, his rejection of money, and his refusal to endorse all the unjust acts to which the various powers had invited him. For example, he publicly stood up to a frenzied Assembly during the trial of the generals of Arginusae. He refused to obey the Thirty Tyrants who had ordered him to arrest Leon of Salamis, an innocent man they wanted to condemn to death. He also refused to endorse the false democracy that succeeded tyranny. He even refused to play the conventional game of trial, the charade of pleading guilty, expressing regret, and offering fines, which would have allowed him to avoid a death sentence. And he also refused to flee, a perfectly possible and morally defensible escape from an unjust and fabricated conviction. He was sentenced to death at seventy for having led the children of the ruling classes astray from the dominant ideology and, in particular, from religion. This was not a miscarriage of justice, nor a political error on the part of Athens, nor an act of personal vengeance. It was simply the end of a failed revolutionary attempt. What it concealed, more profoundly, was the accusation of having tried to turn the children of the ruling class away from an ideology of class abolition : communism. Socrates calls into question many things : patriotism, religion, machismo, contempt and oppression of women, exploitation of children, contempt for the poor and poverty, corruption of the rich and worship of wealth, a social foundation based on individual interest versus that of the community, etc. Socrates said : "The city where those who should hold power are least desirous of power is necessarily the best and most peacefully governed."

Hermogenes : My friends, let us not forget that Socrates was not defending himself, but his search for truth and goodness. If he deemed his death necessary for this search, it was because of the shock it would cause among the Athenian and Greek citizens. And I think that even this meeting, impossible between us yesterday, is perfect proof of that. His death did more for his philosophy than his life. From now on, his work, even unwritten, is immortal. And believe me, if I say this, I feel no less hatred than you for those who condemned him. But I am trying to understand what he meant when he told us that his death would be understood by those who had understood his life. Well, he tried to ensure that his death would be a foundation for his philosophy. Everyone here knows that he never acted in his own self-interest. This means that his bravery in battle, proven time and again (from Potidaea to Samos and from Delium to Amphipolis), was not aimed at glory, that his political wisdom was not aimed at power, that his sharp criticism of those in high positions was not aimed at placing himself in those positions, and therefore aimed at something higher, an ideal worth seeking. Socrates himself invites us to this search… He does not provide an answer. He encourages us to question. Socrates once said : “I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and to question others.”

– Plato : Thank you, Hermogenes, for putting the debate back into perspective and for restoring the philosophical dimension to Socrates' struggle. However, all this doesn't change one fact : the condemnation of Socrates condemns any society capable of such acts. It shows that the Athenian city-state ceased to be governed by reason from the day it was governed by the demagoguery of politicians. These evils will only cease when the city is governed by philosophy or when the people, by some miracle, become philosophers themselves. In the meantime, the lion's share is given to the biggest liar, the biggest braggart, the one who utters the most beautiful false promises, who flatters the people behind their backs. Nothing seems to stop this slide toward the basest instincts, the most avaricious ambitions, and if nothing is done, Athens has hitched itself to a chariot that will one day tip into the ditch. Most states are like ships steered by a half-blind captain. The crew knows the captain isn't taking them to port, but if they mutiny, they won't fare any better because they don't know how to navigate and aren't even aware that such a science exists. This science is philosophy. And Socrates' initial aim was to educate young people in philosophy. He established a school around himself and thus developed his teachings. What I will always remember about Socrates is that philosophy is the art of all arts, without which none is capable of understanding itself or others.

I would like to remind you that Socrates wanted to build a work : his vision of philosophy founded on entirely new concepts. I will briefly recall its foundations. There is no identity between the visible world and the intelligible world. The goal of rationality cannot be to translate all of reality but only to approach it as closely as possible and to generalize its lessons. Only the dialectic of opposites, used scientifically, in a way that corresponds to the contradictory nature of things, can perceive their essence. The common mode of perceiving the world, which is non-contradictory, cannot access the truth of nature, of humankind, and of society. For most people, as for most thinkers, there are things and principles that oppose each other, but they are external to one another. For them, one society can fight another, one person can struggle against another, one principle can oppose another.

What distinguishes Socrates' dialectical viewpoint is that the opposition is primarily internal. This seems absurd to many, who reply that a thing cannot be both one way and, at the same time, its opposite. And yet, I repeat, for Socrates, opposites are opposed within every structure, every constitution, every object, every society, and every individual. Does the benevolent person always do good, and is always doing good always benevolent ? Is the pious person always just, and the just person always pious ? Does the courageous person always possess courage ? Is virtue always found in love, and love in virtue ? To ask these questions is already to answer them. Knowledge lies in the act of ignorance. The pursuit of Good lies in recognizing the attraction of Evil. Love lies in recognizing Hatred. Attraction is made of repulsion. This is the contradictory meaning of Socrates' formula, "No one is wicked willingly" : we do harm while thinking we are doing good, or at least doing ourselves good. And, in doing harm, we also harm ourselves. A double contradiction, then. And, at the same time, Socrates emphasized that, without knowledge, there is no wrongdoing. By not knowing how to distinguish Good from Evil, the one who does evil remains ignorant of it.

Let's examine this in science. There is a contradiction between the unity and plurality of structure, between its stability and instability, between its mobility and immobility, between its energy and lack of energy, between its opposing goals and principles. Let's take the example of mobility and immobility. How could something be both at the same time ? Simply consider an object, for example, a sphere, which is only globally stable because it rotates. Rotation means that it moves. But, precisely because of this rotational movement, the sphere is immobile. It is therefore mobile in order to be immobile, and vice versa. Similarly, it can be both stable and unstable. For example, water flows smoothly and steadily through a pipe. If we observe it closely, we notice eddies forming within it which, on a small scale, are incredibly agitated, characterized by constant instability. Instability is inseparable from overall stability. Opposites are everywhere intertwined and interdependent in nature. The individual is subject to the same internal contradictions. He is simultaneously calm and violent, gentle and impetuous, timid and extroverted, selfless and selfish, and so on. Constantly, the individual is torn between opposing feelings and sensations. Let's take sensations, for example. Sometimes our body needs water. This doesn't necessarily mean we know it. A person can desire water and, at the same time, not desire it. They can simultaneously love and dislike, desire to be loved and not desire to be loved. They can, at the same time, feel like getting angry and not want to get angry, and so on. Their passion pulls them in one direction, and their reason in another. In society, people behave similarly. Individuals simultaneously desire the success of the state and, conversely, its failure. They thank him, but at the same time, they hate him. They want to obey him, yet this doesn't prevent them from wanting to disobey him. As with objects, as with individuals, these contradictions within society and the state are inevitable. We cannot wish to eliminate contradictions because they are inherent in the very nature of things. Seeking the essence of things is not about eliminating contradiction but about finding the natural harmony between dialectical opposites. Similarly, in society, scientific politics, the politics of rulers trained in philosophy, must consist of seeking harmony between opposites : between rich and poor, rulers and ruled, competent and incompetent in each field. We must find the way in which these opposing forces can be reconciled, the way that corresponds to their nature. Eliminating opposites is an illusion. It is seeking the exacerbation of opposites and moving toward the destruction of the entire social structure instead of improving it. Nature never proceeds in this way.We must find a mode of organization through which opposing forces can simultaneously express themselves without destroying one another ; that is, without allowing each other a place corresponding to their respective natural needs, and without striving for everyone to have the same needs and the same roles. If each opposing force acts at its own level, the forces complement and reinforce one another. If they constantly and violently confront each other, they destabilize the entire structure and continue to clash until its total destruction. Since nature finds a way to accommodate opposites, the goal of the State must be to seek natural harmony in social relations. For the State, what is good and just is that everyone has their rightful place, that the right person should be the ruler and the right person the ruled, that the right person should be the craftsman, another the merchant, a third the soldier, and a fourth the leader of the State. Everyone must be in the position that best serves the general interest of the entire people, and not merely their own selfish and individual interests. In such a system, competence will correspond to character and personal goals. This implies that we do not ask a man incapable of weaving to become a weaver, nor a man incapable of steering a ship to take the helm, nor a man incapable of leading the state to do so. There is no single competence for every function. For the overall leadership of society, the necessary quality and ability lies in knowing how to draw general lessons from the study of existing conditions. This competence will be recognized as scientific and philosophical knowledge in its most general form. We must acknowledge that this science of all sciences is to be found in arithmetic and especially in geometry, then in astronomy, and finally in the philosophy of all philosophies, that is to say, in dialectic. That is why the men who defend society must be chosen from among those who understand the general conditions and fight for the common good. And those who lead must also be chosen from among those who understand and have studied philosophy.The point is that everyone should have their rightful place, that the right person should be the ruler and the right person the ruled, that the right person should be the craftsman, another the merchant, a third a soldier, and a fourth the head of state. Everyone must be in the position that best serves the general interest of the entire people, and not just their own selfish and individual interest. In such a system, competence will correspond to character and personal goals. This implies that we do not ask a man incapable of weaving to become a weaver, nor a man incapable of steering a ship to take the helm, nor a man incapable of leading the state to do so. There is no single competence for every function. For the overall leadership of society, the quality and capacity lie in knowing how to draw general lessons from the study of existing conditions. This competence will be recognized as scientific and philosophical knowledge in its most general form. We must admit that this science of all sciences is to be found in arithmetic and especially in geometry, then in astronomy, and finally in the philosophy of all philosophies, that is to say, in dialectics. This is why those who defend society must be chosen from among those who understand the general conditions and fight for the common good. And those who govern must also be chosen from among those who understand and have studied philosophy.The point is that everyone should have their rightful place, that the right person should be the ruler and the right person the ruled, that the right person should be the craftsman, another the merchant, a third a soldier, and a fourth the head of state. Everyone must be in the position that best serves the general interest of the entire people, and not just their own selfish and individual interest. In such a system, competence will correspond to character and personal goals. This implies that we do not ask a man incapable of weaving to become a weaver, nor a man incapable of steering a ship to take the helm, nor a man incapable of leading the state to do so. There is no single competence for every function. For the overall leadership of society, the quality and capacity lie in knowing how to draw general lessons from the study of existing conditions. This competence will be recognized as scientific and philosophical knowledge in its most general form. We must admit that this science of all sciences is to be found in arithmetic and especially in geometry, then in astronomy, and finally in the philosophy of all philosophies, that is to say, in dialectics. This is why those who defend society must be chosen from among those who understand the general conditions and fight for the common good. And those who govern must also be chosen from among those who understand and have studied philosophy.And those who lead must still be chosen from among those who understand and have studied philosophy.And those who lead must still be chosen from among those who understand and have studied philosophy.

Phaedo : No, Plato, our master didn't say that study is the key to good and evil. Socrates said to Euthydemus : "First, I consider health a good and sickness an evil ; and then, if I consider the cause of these two states, I believe that drinks, food, and activities are all good things when they bring about health, and evil things when they bring about sickness. Consequently, health and sickness will in themselves be good things when they bring about good, and evil things when they cause harm." Euthydemus, still not convinced, replied : "But how could health cause harm ?" And Socrates replied : "Well, by Jupiter, those who are robust take part in a bad expedition, and they perish, while those who are weak remain and are alive ! Good athletes will participate in increasingly difficult competitions that will eventually make them sick. Their good health will turn out to be an evil." Euthydemus insisted : “ But is knowledge good and ignorance evil ? Is wealth good and poverty evil ? Is happiness good and unhappiness evil ?” One is so rich that he ends up ruined. Another is so poor that he invents a way out and becomes very rich. One has such extensive knowledge that he ends up disturbing the powerful and is eliminated. Another is so ignorant that, arrested during a riot, he is released because he is deemed harmless. And what did Socrates do ? He gave numerous examples, according to which good transforms into evil and evil into good. He was therefore very far from wanting to disseminate a philosophy of the diametrical opposition of Good and Evil ! Rather, it was the permanent and dynamic internal contradiction that Socrates studied. Thus, a man who wanted to govern for the good of the people became a politician and governed violently.

Once again, no, Plato, the group around Socrates was not simply a school, an academy, a university of abstract philosophy detached from political and social reality, as you present it in your work "The Ion," where you attribute to Socrates this idea of the superiority of philosophy over the arts. In the case of Socrates' inner circle, it was a clandestine revolutionary political group preparing, if circumstances allowed, to act to transform the government of the city in the general interest of the popular classes. Of course, educating young people from the wealthy classes about ending oppression by those same ruling classes was something the latter had every reason to consider "corrupting the youth." Socrates is not the unfortunate philosopher, too wise for his time, that some disciples, themselves hardly revolutionary, would have us believe. Why would anyone want to transform Socrates, who had participated in many social, military and political struggles, into a kind of sage withdrawn from everything and preaching only virtue ?

Why forget the Socrates who freed slaves and gave citizenship to foreigners as soon as he had the power to do so, during a war in Athens ?

The city of Athens had only about 40,000 citizens out of a total population of 300,000 to 400,000. Socrates always spoke of humankind, not just citizens, including foreigners and slaves. He explained that one of the worst forms of behavior was to deprive a person of their freedom by reducing them to a state of slavery : “What is the justification for enslaving a man ? Is it vice ? Is it ignorance ? Is it his country of origin ? Is it circumstances ? Is it a country's defeat in war ? No, nothing justifies putting a man into slavery !” he said to Alcibiades and Polus. “What act is more heinous than reducing a man to slavery ? It is the worst of injustices,” he said to Euthydemus. And he would discuss this further : “Do you know of any people who are called servile ?” “No doubt,” replied Euthydemus. “Is it because of their education or their ignorance ?” “But are they called that because they don't know how to work metals ?” “No, certainly not.” “Or because they don't know how to work metals ?” “No, certainly not.” “Or because they don't know how to build ?” “No, not that either.” “Or because they don't know how to make shoes ?” “For none of these reasons, and quite the opposite ; for most of those who practice these trades are servile beings.” Everyone remembers that Euthydemus left convinced that he was no better than a slave…

Why forget Socrates who, seeing a master who had harshly punished his servant, said to him : "I wonder who deserves to be punished more, you or your servant !"

Socrates always spoke of humanity, not just citizens, including foreigners and slaves among them. He also fought for women's freedom. To take just one example of the Athenian mentality on this point, let us recall Sophocles, who wrote in his play "Ajax" : "For a woman, her adornment is her silence."

Socrates frequently cited examples of peoples among whom women had practiced the art of war with great success : the Amazons of ancient Greece, the women of certain regions of Mali, and, above all, the Scythian warriors. And he showed that these societies were in no way inferior to our own.

Why not recall that Socrates repeatedly claimed that all his philosophy teachers had been women ? One of his teachers was Pericles' wife herself ! And he proclaimed this to Athenians who were in no way inclined to listen to him on this subject !

While he defended philosophical and political views very different from those of most Athenians, why pretend that he simply questioned people so that they could rediscover their own identity ? To transform Socrates into a poor innocent who only dreams and discusses abstractly is to betray him.

– Aeschines : What was Socrates' principal science ? He answered, "The art of organizing a society where all men are happy."

"Suppose there were a man who knew all the sciences ; which would be dearest to his heart ? Was it the science of dice, of arithmetic, of health ? Wouldn't such a man's primary goal be for all people to live happily ? Wouldn't such a goal for the city be as much the object of a science as any other ? Doesn't every type of activity require a particular science and people dedicated to that profession ? Wouldn't such an activity—making people happy—require, as much as any other, even more than any other, a particular science and people who practice it professionally ? Wouldn't they have to learn their trade first, in order to practice it professionally once they had decided to dedicate their activity to it ? Wouldn't this man, knowledgeable in all the sciences, choose to particularly love this one since it aims at the happiness of all ? But, at the same time as a science, wouldn't the happiness of humankind also be..." An art ?

My friends, I fear that by merely reproaching the Athenians for having been afraid of Socrates, by accusing them, as Plato has just done, of lacking philosophy, we are minimizing the revolution he proposed. In my opinion, the one who best understood Socrates was his worst enemy : Aristophanes. By positioning himself diametrically opposed to Socrates, he is the one who best defines our master's philosophy. The author of "Clouds," the play that undoubtedly contributed most to Socrates' condemnation, declared himself opposed to all of Socrates' ideas : to the collective ownership of the means of production, to the freedom of women, to the liberation of slaves, and to a political regime that, behind a false democracy, was not that of large landowners and masters of an ever-increasing number of slaves. Even though Socrates was careful not to state such objectives publicly and directly, and was careful not to put his goals in writing, we who participated in his clandestine meetings know what the situation was.

He who proclaimed, "I am no one's master," did not simply mean that he abhorred having a parade of disciples following him like sheep. He was thinking not only of master and disciple, but rather of master and slave ! This meant that slavery horrified him. While the means many of our citizens have found to live without working is to be supported by investing in slaves who work in the mines and fields, Socrates always refused this means of subsistence. Similarly, he refused, like his fellow citizens, to offer his feet to slaves to be washed with perfumed water while he lay in bed. Let us remember that his greatest victory for Athens was achieved by offering foreigners, non-citizens of Athens, and slaves the opportunity to participate in battle as free citizens. This is how we were able to defeat Callicratidas at the Battle of Arginusae. Socrates always rejected owning slaves to meet his needs. Charmides can confirm this : he repeatedly tried to offer Socrates slaves to help him materially, without success. Socrates also publicly denounced the searches for runaway slaves launched by Athenian citizens. Beyond the question of slavery itself, Socrates challenged the entire prevailing economic and social system : the accumulation of wealth at one extreme and misery at the other, the growth of social dictatorship under the guise of political democracy, the increasing oppression of formerly free and independent cities, the growing role of plundering the riches of ever-expanding territories while wealth acquired through labor diminished, and the rising corruption and associated vices becoming the new virtue of Athens.

Socrates freed a great number of slaves. Phaedo of Elis knew something about this, having been kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery, only to be freed by Socrates himself through an Athenian landowner. He didn't just undertake individual liberations ; he took advantage of an exceptional threat to the city to free all the slaves who agreed to take up arms alongside the citizens, granting them liberty and citizenship !

No, my friends, Socrates did not die by chance, nor by mistake, due to the blind and mad hatred of his accusers, nor through a sudden blindness on the part of his judges. It was his project for a political and social system that the ruling class condemned in him. This project defended the collective ownership of property, the building of a society aimed at the well-being of all. Socrates' constant questioning, for which he was criticized, is not that of the Sophists. It is that of a man capable of publicly dismantling a politician, a financier, a large landowner, or a demagogue. I believe above all that the ruling class of Athens resented this political project, which directly targeted them. Behind Socrates' free and open university, there was, as we all know here, the attempt to win over some of the children of the ruling classes to his project. This clandestine circle that Socrates was building was a direct threat to the oppressors. It meant that a potential direction for a popular revolution existed, should it erupt. From the moment he was publicly denounced, it was clear the blow would be struck. And if Socrates didn't defend himself at his trial, it was because his defense could only have been a direct attack, a condemnation of Athens and its social system, which would have directly condemned us all...

– Plato : I would especially like…

Cebes : Plato, excuse me for interrupting, but I fear my point will be outdated by the time you speak, and yet I wish to express it. It's true that one of Socrates' remarkable battles against the spirit of his time, against the vast majority of Athenians in particular, was for the liberation of women. He constantly proclaimed that only women had been his teachers in philosophy. He asserted that the liberation of man is impossible without that of woman. Aristophanes, in fact, is preparing a play on this theme called "The Assemblywomen," in which the playwright ridicules the claim of women to govern and Socrates' claim to defend women's freedom. He falsely equated this freedom with the community of women and children. He claimed that women in power could only do whatever they wanted.

While we all know that ancient hollow clay statues of women are found throughout Greece, revealing that women were not always dominated, scorned, and relegated to the realm of domestic virtues, things have certainly changed. Women are now under the absolute control of their husbands, confined to the home with domestic slaves, stripped of the management of their own property, and deprived of all political rights. They are forbidden from appearing in the theater or participating in the grand evening meal. This contempt for women does not mean that men are driven to turn away from them to have children. On the contrary, in Athens, as in most city-states, marriage is an obligation. Unmarried men are prosecuted. The father's authority over his children is limitless. They are even more dependent than the woman. Private property has taken over all human relationships. In a society driven by the lure of profit and wealth, the family has become just another commodity. Socrates, who fought against this society, always believed that personal life would have benefited from the collective disposal of goods.

– Plato It is perfectly true that Socrates fought for equality between men and women, and this was one of the themes he frequently developed. I, too, believe that the differences between men and women have been artificially introduced into society, whereas all possible differences exist between individuals of both sexes, but not between men and women, apart from the capacity to bear children. All professions can be performed identically by both sexes. It is simply a matter of personal ability and training. This is evident in practical, artisanal, or commercial tasks, as well as in political or intellectual ones. There are men incapable of becoming weavers, sailors, or philosophers, and women who are perfectly capable of doing so. When they have the ability and training, women can perfectly well lead men in such activities. Even war, the defense of society, and its leadership at the highest levels of government are not activities closed to women. We all know of examples of women who, more or less discreetly, played a role in Athenian politics. A well-known example is that of Pericles' wife. She led a discussion group, one of whose most assiduous participants was none other than… Socrates ! Since the principle of the state is to place men in positions based on their competence, it is obvious that women should also be placed there, provided they possess the necessary skills. And it will be observed that they can be, like soldiers, guardians as effective as men in ensuring the city's security. They can practice the same physical exercises in preparation for war. They can be as courageous and virtuous as male guardians. Since virtue, courage, and selflessness are the qualities required of male soldiers, women can also be chosen to become guardians of the city's security, selected according to precisely the same criteria. And, again, as long as a woman possesses the necessary qualities and competence, other men will obey her. As long as they have studied to become strategists, they will be followed by their troops just like men. As for the government, it too can be led by women, for it has been proven that women are capable of being philosophers as well as men. As long as philosophy is the criterion for choosing those who govern the city, then women philosophers will have their rightful place. Many women philosophers participate in my universities, and, even if they are forced to conceal their femininity under a wig to avoid directly confronting the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of some men, their participation in the debates is far from inferior to that of men.Warrior women can very well be the wives of warrior men, and they can, along with the men, collectively care for their children. Like Socrates, I believe that men and women can grant each other considerable freedom in sexual relations, provided there is no mutual harm and no incest or sexual relations between close relatives. Private property has been made the model for personal and family relationships, and as a result, women have become the private property of each man, as have children. The need for inheritance was the reason for this, and with it, the need to recognize the children's origins—that of paternity, which is obviously much more difficult to establish than maternity. The freedom of men and women to choose or separate has thus been alienated, even though it could very well have been recognized, since it in no way harms the stability of the state or the general welfare ; quite the contrary. This is clearly seen in the numerous clashes between families that arise from disputes related to marriages and inheritances.

Critobulus : I don't understand what you mean. It seems to me that this is a law of nature. Women are not identical to men, and it's no coincidence that they specialize in activities like weaving, cooking, and domestic tasks. It has always been this way, and women have never been seen philosophizing, waging war, or governing. I personally never discussed these matters with Socrates, but then again, he didn't invite his wife to his debates...

– Plato : First of all, I would like to tell you to be wary of all reasoning that begins with "this has always been," "that is immutable in nature," or "such and such has never changed." How long have we known what the world is like ? How many regions of the world and how many years before us are totally or partially unknown ? Furthermore, if you look around you, you can see that every day the river flows through the same place. And the ancients can confirm that they knew the same thing : this was indeed the riverbed in their time. So what ? Would you conclude from this that it has been the same for all eternity ? You would certainly be mistaken. To be sure of this, you only need to take a walk in the surrounding area to notice that an ancient riverbed, now silted up, exists a little further on. But it is undoubtedly too old for any evidence from that time to be found. None of us saw the separation between the shores of the Hellespont, but when we examine the similarity of the two shores, we find it likely that they were once joined by a land bridge. The same is true of the relationship between men and women. Today, women's participation on an equal footing with men is frowned upon, in Athens as in most neighboring cities and states. But you will notice that this is not the case everywhere. There are some societies that give women an important place, allow them to participate in political leadership and even in the armies, and make them deities and political leaders. As for the past, it is not certain that even in Greece, women were ever more important than they are today. And the future is also uncertain. Instead of arguing that "everything has always been this way," let us consider what might be in the best interest of the city in the future and examine the arguments that would have us believe that women have no place in higher activities. That's how to solve the problem.

– Critobulus : By Zeus, Plato, you're raving ! You're taking liberties with other people's wives and children ! Anyone can sleep with another man's wife, and you tell us that this will be the foundation of a stable and secure society... How can you utter such nonsense while you're still sober and speaking seriously ? Such scandalous remarks don't commit you to much, you who have never been married to a woman and have no children. How can you claim to understand the feelings and goals of husbands and wives ? Do you think that a wife doesn't care that her husband sleeps around, and that the husband, for his part, doesn't have good reasons for wanting his wife to remain reserved for him ?

Plato : My dear friend, I fully understand your anger, and I hope that, far from being offended by my proposals, you will examine them with the seriousness that Socrates demanded when analyzing a point of view, however far removed it may be from our own. Social customs appear all the more natural and immutable when they are firmly rooted in seemingly personal goals. But, while I have no experience of marriage, I would like to offer you a few arguments to convince you that my point is not as illogical as it seems.

First, I would point out that, if we know anything about past societies, women have not always been as dominated as they are today. This is evident in certain societies that resemble ancient Greek society, such as among the Scythians or the Malians. Women there can play a political role that would surprise us and also enjoy a degree of personal freedom that is very unusual in our society today. This shows us that the current inferior position of women is neither as natural nor as eternal as it might initially seem.

Next, I would like you to reflect on and critically examine our habit of saying, for everything, this is "mine," this is "yours." "My" wife and "my children" are part of this. We began by saying this about everyday objects, then we moved on to much greater riches : land, livestock, crops, houses, then mines, ships, markets, and finally we arrived at the realm of human relationships. We have started using these terms of physical possession of objects for human beings who are not even slaves ! Yet, women and children are not objects. How can a man consider himself free if he unites with a woman he considers a slave or an object belonging to him ? How can a child be properly educated if he is not treated as a free being ? How can he then be capable of consciously choosing his own future and that of his city if he has been subjected for many years to a life without rights ? If, as Socrates argued, all women and men had the free right to sexual relations and, consequently, to have children, then we would have a state that was a true family. We would no longer experience fratricidal wars like the ones we have just witnessed. Indeed, no one could violently attack another without thinking : perhaps this is a brother, a father, a child. This is how such a way of relating to men and women would form the basis of collective harmony and prevent violent disputes between citizens.

– Cebes : Socrates never deviated from his path, which consisted of believing that self-interest—the well-being of each individual—cannot be opposed to the general, social interest. This meant that there was no need to chase after wealth, to accumulate it, nor any personal need to amass power. He was not going to change course in the face of difficulties. He did not change in the face of dictatorship. He did not change in the face of the success of his friends, who offered him the opportunity to share in it. He did not change when Athens turned against him. He had never sought personal happiness that conflicted with that of all humankind. At his trial, Socrates confirmed his views, declaring : “What treatment, what fine have I deserved for believing that I should renounce a tranquil life, neglect what most people hold dear : wealth, private interests, military commands, success in public discourse, magistracies, coalitions, political factions ?” For having preferred to render to each of you individually what I declare to be the greatest of services, by trying to persuade him to be less concerned with what belongs to him than with himself. (…) What have I deserved, I ask, for having conducted myself thus ? Good treatment, Athenians, if we wish to be fair ; and undoubtedly, good treatment that is appropriate to me… If, therefore, you wish to treat me justly and according to my merit, this is what I propose : that I be fed at the Prytaneum !”

Everyone will certainly recognize the irony, but above all, it reflects a genuine sentiment in Socrates, who always considered himself at the service of the interests of the people as a whole, while expecting no recognition in return, other than the satisfaction of having remained steadfast in his principles. Socrates knew that people are fickle and only become revolutionary in exceptional circumstances. It was for this type of situation that he had built his entire life. The people could be turned against him. He was not surprised by this. But it was still on these people that Socrates relied to change society, which is quite different from Plato's view, who places the philosopher above the common man.

– Plato : It's not a question of despising the common man, but we mustn't delude ourselves either : he can't truly govern himself. We simply need to recognize that knowledge isn't available to everyone, nor is competence. Now, governing people, like managing armies or fostering economic development, requires competence. As for ordinary people, they don't always want to listen to those who claim to liberate them. I intend to recount this in a philosophical tale called "The Allegory of the Cave." Men are imprisoned there, bound more by intellectual and moral ties than by chains. A hero manages to find them and wants to free them, but they revolt against the unfortunate revolutionary. Such was the story of Socrates. Those he wanted to defend rebelled against him and his acerbic remarks, because such negative predictions about the choices of their society frightened them.

Phaedo : That, at least, was not Socrates' point of view. When asked to reflect on the ideal society, he always ended up talking about masons, sculptors, fishermen, farmers, and so on—all the men whose labor enriches the city. But he didn't even mention soldiers, politicians, speculators, administrators, or statesmen. He didn't mention slaves or slavery. This meant that, for him, those who made up the ideal city were the men who work and live by their labor. He denounced the deceitfulness of politicians, who convince the people that all they have to do is entrust them with power to be happy. He mocked the ignorance of politicians about politics as much as he did the ignorance of the military about the army. Because what he wanted above all was to give the popular classes a taste for governing themselves instead of piously bowing down to the so-called superior strata of society.

Plato : When it comes to discussing and deciding on the government of the city, everyone can give their opinion : carpenter, blacksmith, shoemaker, merchant, rich and poor alike, and no one criticizes them for offering advice, even if they haven't studied anywhere. This doesn't mean that everyone doesn't need specific skills to practice their trade. The carpenter in his. The blacksmith in his. The shoemaker in his. And there is also a profession of politician. For this activity requires skills and training. Everyone can give their opinion to the boatman, the fisherman, or the craftsman, but that doesn't make them a professional in the field. Well then, let's try to recruit and train dedicated and competent politicians.

Xenophon : The greatest deceit, according to Socrates, is to pretend to be capable of governing the state when one is not. He constantly seeks the qualities necessary for someone who claims to be preparing to become a leader of the state. Socrates replies that such a person must not desire power for its own sake, for honors, to accumulate wealth, or for the pleasure of commanding. This type of argument, characteristic of Socrates, does not tell us whether he wished individuals to have power or not. He is simply discussing the qualities that those who aspire to it should possess. However, Socrates says that one must seek the middle path between the situation of a slave and that of a slave owner, between that of the oppressed and that of the oppressor. The position of tyrant, wealthy slave owner, hoarder, or successful politician seemed in no way enviable to him. Everyone claims that the man of power is the richest and happiest man, since he does as he pleases without anyone being able to stop him. For Socrates, these people, far from being free, are the most dependent ; far from being merely possessors, they are themselves possessed by negative and devouring passions that prevent them from seeking happiness in the simple pleasures of life : friendship, love, beauty, virtue, reflection, and reading. From this can arise a misinterpretation of Socrates' discourse, which can be taken as a general attack against the rich and against all statesmen. I recall, for example, Socrates' conversation with Crito, who was protesting against all the bureaucratic hurdles of the state. And Socrates uses the example of the sheepdog that wards off dangers lurking around the flocks. He deduces from this that certain men can be chosen to protect citizens who cannot defend themselves with weapons. Certainly, he discourages young men who already see themselves as heads of state without having the necessary abilities and without wanting to undertake the required studies : "Young man," he said, "it would be shameful to aspire to one day command the armies of the republic without learning the art of command." But, conversely, he could encourage a young man whose abilities he recognized but who underestimated himself. Generally speaking, he ridiculed not the act of governing a city or leading an army, but the act of not learning anything for it.“Don't you see that we wouldn't accept an ignorant person to lead the lute players, nor to direct the dancers, the athletes, or the masons, and yet we accept to lead the city and command the armies people who are incapable of saying what the state of Athens' production is, what its economic or military strengths are, and who launch wars without even knowing if the city has the balance of power to ensure victory !”

– Plato : If we were to open the doors of philosophy to the masses, enlightening each person individually, I greatly fear that centuries of instruction by thousands of eminent philosophers would not suffice. Such a statement should not be taken as contempt for the vast majority of our fellow citizens. Not only are they entirely unprepared for philosophical training, but it can only seem completely irrelevant to their immediate objectives. Just as one does not ask someone taking a short voyage to a neighboring island to learn how to steer the ship, why should one ask every citizen to understand the general philosophy of science and that of governing society ? Does the craftsman need to be intimately familiar with his own trade, or does he study the craftsman's trade in general ? Should the peasant study the art of the weaver, under the pretext that his thread will later be transformed into cloth ? He who is empowered to lead the whole of society must, through his actions, be prepared to ask himself the general questions common to all of society and its functioning. Neither the craftsman, nor the peasant, nor the merchant, nor the sailor, nor the fisherman has the habit, the training, or the preoccupation for this. It is among the guardians, those charged with the tasks of security and administration of the city, that one must look for the most philosophical minds, the citizens most concerned with the common good, and the men who have best equipped themselves to study the subject in question : the general science of all sciences, philosophy. Is it true that Socrates wished for the people to govern themselves directly, as some here seem to believe ? Have you not mentioned that Socrates reread the plays of Euripides and that they agreed on their political meaning ? Well, didn't Euripides declare in his play "The Suppliants," "Besides, how could the masses, incapable of sound reasoning, possibly lead the city down the right path ?" And didn't the same author say in his play "Orestes," "The crowd is a formidable thing when its leaders are wicked. But when it finds good ones, its decisions are always sound." In our republic, there is a genuine crisis of values, the very crisis that Socrates' ideas sought to address : a crisis of the family, a crisis of civic defense, a crisis of corruption, and a decline in order. It is essential that leaders of the republic not be afraid to confront this crisis, and they cannot do so by cultivating a false vision of the people. The people have a tendency to succumb to empty rhetoric, to lying sophists, and to flatterers of all kinds. To avoid descending into demagoguery, democracy must be tempered by the recognized competence of its leaders.

– Phaedo : You seem to have completely forgotten that Euripides' plays were so revolutionary that their author had to flee the city where his life was in danger for having denounced, through a great many plays, all the Athenian myths of glory and war. Remember how many of his plays featured heroes who were none other than the Trojan victims of the Greek massacres... And he didn't hesitate to say that the army commanders of this war, so glorified by Homer, hadn't gotten their hands dirty while the ordinary soldiers, drawn from the common people, had died...

Aeschines : For Socrates, unlike you, Plato, the common man—whether tanner, cloth merchant, farmer, or tailor—was the first among citizens. We all heard him say so. He never considered that his philosophy should be addressed to the elite, neither elite by birth, nor by wealth, nor by intellectual capacity, nor by education. Some of us learned everything by following Socrates' advice. The first piece of advice was to learn everything. For example, I, who was a student of Socrates, went from gymnast to prompter in the theater, actor, professor of literature, clerk, orator, lawyer, soldier, and philosopher. But, while Socrates favored study, learning each trade through its specific knowledge, he did not admit any superiority to the possessor of that knowledge, to the professional, whether mason, farmer, philosopher, mathematician, or politician. Socrates spoke with us as he would with the average person and looked down on no one. He did not believe that societal change should be the work of a group of men outside of society. And this was for a fundamental reason : the society he envisioned had to, first and foremost, satisfy all people and therefore be built by them, not just for them. This did indeed presuppose a community of goods, a point for which his opponents, such as Aristophanes, frequently criticized him.

– Plato : You claim that Socrates only had the working classes, artisans for example, in mind in his politics. But if a portion of Athenian citizens were not kept in a state of relative leisure with regard to productive and manual labor, they would not be able, as a good portion of Athenian citizens do today, to spend a good part of their day reading, discussing, going to the theater or writing plays, studying, and philosophizing. They would not be able to raise the level of their art and thought to the necessary height and develop the city's capacities in terms of thought, art, science, and politics. If Euripides had to earn his living by fishing, farming, or sailing, he would not have produced his plays, and Athens would only be worse off. But, conversely, it is pointless to ask the fisherman, the farmer, or the shoemaker to write tragedies. Never, for example, did the people of artisans rise above an interest in their own art to general thoughts and concepts, in terms of culture or politics.

Why choose philosophers committed to the scientific spirit to govern the city ? Because we know that these kinds of people are devoted only to truth and not to success, wealth, honors, or fortune ; that they will never cease to reflect and will not be satisfied with a received idea, but will go to the very end to understand the essence of things. If they are dedicated to the happiness of the city, they will therefore act in the same way, never being bound by their personal interests, just as they are when it comes to their science.

– Aeschines : When describing the new society to be built, Socrates spoke of four professions he considered absolutely essential, which he named : weaver, farmer, shoemaker, and mason. Then, after reflection, he added four other equally essential professions : blacksmith, livestock breeder, wholesaler, and retailer. He admitted that a portion of the population might temporarily become soldiers, but only in the event of an external attack. He never mentioned the ruling classes, nor the perioikoi, nor slaves, nor professions of power or state administration… He did not mention magistrates and other public officials, politicians, leaders of all kinds, or the wealthy classes, thus implying that they were not among the essential people of the city. This is how Socrates envisioned society…

– Plato : Of course, the carpenter must practice his craft and the fisherman his. They have their role and are indispensable in their own way. But they cannot simultaneously learn and practice the function of governing. Yet the city must be governed according to the rules of the art. The art of legislation and government can only be practiced by a small number of men. Indeed, the majority cannot acquire the knowledge to govern. Men are not capable of governing themselves because they cannot enact good laws. However, this does not mean dismissing the interests of the entire city. On the contrary, if the government is in the hands of the small number of men who possess the knowledge of governing and wish to use it for the common good, they can conduct policy for the benefit of the whole city. And these men will have the wisdom to guide the entire population toward the policies they will define as they go along. The legislator must be free from any obstacle in the exercise of their art. They must be entirely independent. The physician is obliged to leave their patients and write down their prescriptions. Before their return, their prescriptions may no longer be suitable for their patients. The physician will then be obliged to modify them. The same applies to the legislator when the prevailing circumstances have changed. In any case, an election cannot suffice to define who the competent physicians are, nor, likewise, who the competent legislators and strategists are. Socrates maintained that each field of knowledge requires specific qualities and training. Why should it be any different for the governance of the state, which everyone recognizes as a distinct art ? We have suffered enough from having placed at the head of the state men who possessed neither the skills nor the personal qualities required for these high offices. And the child of a mason is best placed to learn the mason's trade, the child of a farmer the farmer's profession. The child of a political leader will also be best placed to learn this profession. When we stop choosing these statesmen based on their competence, we fall into all the pitfalls we have just witnessed, namely corruption, tyranny, arbitrariness, and violence.

– Phaedo : Let us recall the words of the Athenians to the Melians who refused to submit : “Justice does not enter into men's reasoning when settling a dispute unless the forces on both sides are equal ; but those who are stronger do what is in their power, and the weak yield.” The relations between social classes are like the relations between city-states : it is a question of power dynamics, not just justice. The upheavals in Greece are not a struggle between vice and virtue, between honest and corrupt men, between dictators and democrats, between good and evil. To see it that way is merely to look at the surface of things or to believe the justifications that men give themselves. No ! The struggles that took place among the Greeks, as with neighboring peoples, between city-states as well as within the city-state itself, were class struggles : the struggle between herders and farmers—between warrior herders, patriarchal nomads and conquerors, and sedentary, matriarchal, and peaceful farmers ; the struggle between aristocrats, large landowners, and poor peasants ; the struggle between large slave owners and their oppressed ; and finally, the struggle between merchants and aristocrats. Even the struggle between Athens and Sparta was a product of the competition between these two city-states for the leadership of Greece, but also of the antagonism between Sparta, controlled by landowners, and Athens, controlled by merchants and traders working for the global market.

A merchant class did indeed develop three hundred years ago with the emergence of large-scale trade and Greek currency, inevitably creating tensions between the cities. Athenian democracy did not arise from an awareness of the people's interests, but rather from a social and political crisis. The aristocracy had accumulated widespread hostility, but the crisis had deeper roots. The old society of farmers and landowners had changed, while the system of domination remained the same. This was reflected in the constant warfare between the city-states. Ultimately, it gave great importance to the foot soldier, the hoplite. However, the recruitment of this infantry was based on wealthy peasants. These peasants, who lacked decision-making power within the city-state, saw no reason to risk their lives to defend it. The social foundations had been completely transformed : colonization had fostered large-scale trade and crafts. These activities became major sources of wealth, which could be expressed in monetary terms with the development of currency. For example, the city of Corinth became famous for its ceramics, exported throughout the Mediterranean. Entrepreneurship, investment, and speculation became possible. The change was not only economic, but also social and political. New wealthy classes emerged. Social inequalities widened between impoverished small farmers and wealthy merchants and financiers.

Solon was far from being a liberator. Let's not forget that it was under Solon that the slave trade became institutionalized in Athens and Greece. Until then, it only involved a few servants of the palace or the family. It was a personal relationship, and slaves were an integral part of the family. They were not objects to be sold on a large market. What Chios inaugurated—the sale of human beings as merchandise—was thus organized and then massively developed, starting with Solon. Athenian democracy therefore has the same origins and the same foundations as the most ferocious oppression…

The emergence of democracy was part of the reforms initiated by Draco and Solon to prevent these inequalities from sparking a social revolution. The old ruling classes, without political intervention, were unable to secure sufficient support from the excluded : slaves, foreigners, indebted peasants, and the urban poor. Despite these reforms, class struggle continued inexorably. The aristocratic classes, who governed the cities, found themselves threatened by this new merchant bourgeoisie eager to enter politics, influence societal decisions, and manipulate them to their advantage. This same aristocratic class had to fight to avoid being overthrown by populist tyrants. Crafts and trade (primarily maritime) developed somewhat later in the cities. However, the Greeks, henceforth harboring a great aversion to paid work, and especially manual labor, considered politics the only activity truly worthy of a citizen, the rest being left as far as possible to slaves or non-citizen foreigners. But this disdain for artisanal and commercial activities was by no means the case with Socrates, who neglected none of the manual arts, himself the son of a sculptor and a housekeeper… All trades seemed worth learning to him, and he never claimed that a sculptor's son should become a sculptor… Plato's view that a potter's child should be a potter, a warrior's child should become a warrior, a political leader's child should become a political leader, etc., is entirely his own and should not at all be considered a Socratic legacy. For Plato, who here makes a fine declaration of social conservatism, everything would be perfect in the best of all possible worlds if everyone accepted their place : the potter not to become a weaver, the weaver not to meddle in politics, and the slave to understand that this is his place. Never, ever did Socrates utter such nonsense ! On the contrary, he declared that he knew only men and not slaves, human beings and not potters, nor even warriors… He envisioned a classless society founded on the collective ownership of goods.

Who remembers what Socrates' profession was ? No one ! Posterity will remember him as a professional philosopher, even though no one ever paid him for it. For what allowed a citizen to become a hoplite was being able to pay for his own protective tunic. His true occupation during his adult life was also unpaid, and Socrates is truly the only soldier who didn't boast about it, to the point that most people don't even remember that he was a hoplite until the age of fifty, that he participated in numerous wars, always careful to respect his adage of not going to war for anything other than defending the people, not for glory, not for honors, not for fortune, even when these presented themselves to him. In such cases, he let his neighbors benefit, like Alcibiades once did, and many others… Socrates always showed that he did not despise manual labor, nor the exploited, nor even slaves, whom he considered equal to free men. This made him an inevitable enemy of all established powers, whatever their political form.

Phaedo : Socrates has sometimes been portrayed as a glorious soldier in the Athenian armies ! Socrates actually said : “It is said that I passed my interventions in the wars with honor, but where is the glory in that ? If I acquitted myself well, it was not due to a warlike temperament, quite the contrary. When I was nearly cited in the army's orders for saving many Athenians, it was only because I did not panic in defeat. When the entire army went into disarray and the fleeing soldiers were massacred, I remained motionless, attentive to what would happen next.” But it is true that the development of a hoplite army had revolutionized the attitude of the inhabitants, who demanded the right to decide for a society for which they shed their blood, unlike the time when only the nobles bore arms.

– Epigene What truly revolutionized Greece was neither the mindset of its inhabitants, nor the climate, nor democracy, nor tyranny, nor the rich classes, nor the poor classes, nor Persia, nor Athens, nor Sparta, nor Thebes, nor Corinth, nor Pericles, nor Solon, nor Draco. It was the invention of money and widespread monetary exchange. It was a veritable volcanic eruption that annihilated the old Greek society ! Of ancient Greece, only ashes remain, only appearances. We can no longer even understand this old society, so unlike the one we know. The old world has completely disappeared. Even the ancient mentality has been razed to its foundations. Not a single stone of the old edifice remains standing. The work of destruction and dissolution was brutal, radical, and inexorable. The peasants, both small and medium-sized, were ruined before being partially reintegrated into the new world. The place and role of the large landowners were completely overturned, their resistance easily overcome. Everything changed : economic activities, social relations, the goals of society, ideology, and power. Attempts to slow the transformation were futile. The center of gravity of economic and social activity shifted abruptly, without giving society time to find solutions, stages, or compromises. This is why Greece experienced such acute social and political crises. This is not fundamentally linked to the morality of the leaders, their competence, or their choices. Even the most capable were deeply shaken by the earthquake of a monetary economy entering a world without money. Money destroyed person-to-person relationships, respect for old customs, tribal ways of functioning, and the weight of family ties, replacing all of this with the accumulation of money, including through speculation, a completely new and previously unimaginable concept. Corruption became indispensable to these new relationships. Exchanges of trust between individuals took on an anonymous character even before transforming into large-scale international trade. In this new society, man is merely a means, and money an end. Money transformed human relationships into anonymous relationships with a virtual, distant, and intangible entity : the global market. The value of work and human relationships were brutally devalued. Suddenly, it became possible to amass a fortune without producing a single tangible good, simply through speculation. Work ceased to be the foundation of wealth. The entire edifice upon which ancient Greece was based was dissolved by money relations...This is how private appropriation transformed into the appropriation of money.That is why the fight for a just and humane world requires overturning this social order.

Xenophon : Personally, I don't see Greece as a society headed straight for ruin, one that could only be saved by establishing a community of property. My dear Phaedo, I would like to remind you that the revolution from which we all emerged was that of the Greek cities against the Persian occupiers, not the communist revolution. It was this struggle that forced them to unite, and unfortunately, as soon as this struggle is no longer an immediate necessity, the cities violently divide once again. The collective spirit that should animate them, far from being class struggle, must be the understanding of all citizens for the sake of social harmony, and this is what the political leadership of the city should aim for : not only social calm, but the happiness of each individual in their rightful place, and not the demand by everyone to access positions for which they are in no way prepared. This is the demagoguery that the so-called democracy has developed, to the great detriment of Athens.

– Plato : I fear that this somewhat narrow political dimension, which you defend so vehemently, Phaedo, presents Socrates as another Zeno, fighting dictatorships and false democracies, without giving Socrates his full philosophical dimension. You reduce him to the man of a few revolutions—the revolution of women, of the landless and slaves, or of the disenfranchised, of foreigners and slaves—but you forget that Socrates called for another revolution, a more internal one, which I would venture to call the conquest of self. When he debated with a banker, a financier, a democrat, or a dictator, Socrates always spoke to the man, assuming that he had before him another self, aiming, like all men, for moral as well as physical well-being, and he always demonstrated that behind the mystification of power and money, man remained fragile, hesitant, and open to question. It was because he looked first and foremost at the human dimension that he considered himself outside of Athenian or even Greek patriotism, but as a citizen of the world.

Euclid : You're really going off on a tangent, Plato ! To hear you talk, one would think Zeno was nothing but a coup plotter, a brainless revolutionary whose only aim was to overthrow a dictator and who was merely a disciple of Parmenides, without defending any original philosophical vision. Certainly, Zeno was a revolutionary to the very end, refusing at the risk of his life to denounce his comrades when he was arrested by the dictator he intended to overthrow, but he was also a master of philosophy. With his 80 paradoxes, he constructed a veritable body of reasoning, all of which hold up and are far from being gratuitous sophisms. They are binding clauses that anyone who claims to produce a system for explaining reality must consult. They prepare the way for the philosophy of science of the future, when we have greater knowledge about how the world works. The average person might find ridiculous the idea that Achilles cannot overtake a tortoise, but the rational person understands that this proof by contradiction aims to demonstrate a crucial point about time and space : they cannot be divided infinitely into any size. And this is a fundamental point for anyone who considers displacement, speed, motion, matter, or light.

I will take just one example from Zeno's reasoning. Has anyone ever seen a ball bounce indefinitely ? No, of course not. If we observe, for example, that the ball rebounds by half its height with each bounce, we might think that it will then bounce by half of that half, then by another half of that, and so on indefinitely. Yet this process stops. The same is true of a stone skipping across water. If the stone, slowed by the water's resistance, jumps each time by half the distance of the previous jump, we might think it could continue indefinitely. And we all know that this is not the case. The movement stops at a certain point, after a small number of skips. The same is true for the swings of a seesaw, which slows its course by half each time. It is therefore impossible to divide by two infinitely. So, if we consider a time interval and imagine that within this interval there are two halves, and then divide each half in two, we might think we could conceive of infinitely smaller time intervals through this dichotomy. However, thanks to Zeno's reasoning, we see that this type of continuity of quantities, which would follow one another at intervals as small as we like, is not physically possible. If these infinitely small intervals existed, Zeno demonstrates that there would be no movement. This doesn't mean he believes that movement doesn't exist, but that the conception of matter and the void is flawed. And this is where he agrees with Parmenides, who argues that the void cannot be non-being. If the void exists, says Parmenides, then it is a "being." Democritus's reasoning that matter moves from a place occupied by matter to an unoccupied place is invalid. This is where Zeno's paradoxes led. For once, Plato, I think there's a philosopher you haven't understood and whom you're criticizing without foundation !

This is precisely what Parmenides, in agreement with Zeno, observed in his dialogue with Socrates : “To suppose that one passes from rest to motion in an instant poses more problems than it solves. The instant seems to signify something like the starting point of a change in both directions, toward the past and toward the future. At the same time, the instant lies between immobility and motion, and it is simultaneously a transition from one to the other and from the other to the one. But at this instant, it is neither past nor future, neither rest nor motion. One might think that the instant is a constituent element of time, but this is not the case, for the instant has no duration, and one could pile up as many as one likes, it would still not amount to any duration. To suppose the instant as the origin of something, of some event, does not solve the problem any better, for it is to pass from nothing to something from nothing.” Therefore, we cannot separate moments, nor separate movement and rest, each on its own. They are all one.

Zeno's paradoxes ruled out many philosophies of matter that would be erroneous. Socrates recognized the merits of Zeno and Parmenides, with whom he had conversed, and he shared many of their views. Zeno was a student of the philosopher Parmenides, whom he accompanied to Athens 51 years earlier. There, they met Socrates. It was a mutual shock, despite Socrates' youth. Socrates had two striking characteristics : no fear of the prevailing ideology and no connection to the rigid conception of philosophy. He championed the dynamism of contradictions. Where some found opposing forces destructive, he considered them constructive. Back in Elea, Zeno began to engage in politics to change the established order and was arrested for participating in a plot against the tyrant Nearchus. He was tortured to death as a conspirator. At his death, Socrates was struck by Zeno's courage in the face of death. He told us that he thought about Zeno for a long time before drinking the hemlock...

– Terpsion : Indeed, after discussing with Socrates, Zeno developed his concept in the dialectical sense, according to which opposing elements are not separate, isolated, and independent. On the contrary, they are interdependent and inseparable, existing together within the same object. To demonstrate this, Zeno uses the example of a stationary object that begins to move. At that moment, it can be said to be both stationary and in motion. Similarly, in the case of a child being born, or any situation or event that is unfolding, two opposites occur simultaneously. Mobility and movement, unity and plurality, heat and cold, life and death are not to be separated but coupled in each particular situation. They oppose each other, but this opposition is inherent in each situation. Another law of dialectic discovered by Zeno is that of thresholds. A pile of sand differs from a sum of grains of sand. It is a qualitative leap. Zeno's dialectic, on the other hand, studies the links between movement and change : movement at one level presupposes change at another. Such was Zeno's dialectic.

– Crito : I would like us to return to the philosophy of Socrates, which we, his disciples, must be keen to make known, since our master did not, of himself, put his own thought into writing.

– Plato : I would like to emphasize a particular point of general philosophical science that Socrates uniquely discovered. I am reporting his words as accurately as possible, despite the complexity of the subject. Socrates observed that there is a class of intelligible things, a group that does not entirely encompass the class of visible (or perceptible) things. The human mind has knowledge of both what is visible (or sensible, which I would call shadows) and what is comprehensible (or ideas that are called rational because reason manages to include them in its analysis). But this does not mean that humans can superimpose these two kinds of means of knowing, understanding, and perceiving. There is always a discontinuity between them. Despite the greatest efforts of reflection, one cannot superimpose things that are, by their very nature, different and truly separate from one another. The rational understanding cannot encompass everything, nor can vision see everything. Socrates emphasized that we do not have direct contact with reality, contrary to what most people commonly believe. We are like people in a cave who only have an indirect perception of reality. We do not have direct daylight, but only a ray of light that penetrates through a narrow slit. Our images of objects are merely projections onto the cave floor. Accustomed to their dimness, these people would see nothing if they stepped out into the light. Our perceptions will therefore never see anything but shadows. The shadow of things certainly has a relationship with reality, but it is not a relationship of identity. All optical illusions are involved. Shadows contain altered dimensions that can, for example, be larger or smaller than the real object. The subjectivity and emotions of the observer also play a role. His entire previous worldview, the customs and teachings he has received about how things work, are all influenced by this and can significantly distort his perception and create illusions. The universe is therefore not equivalent to his shadow. Is it, however, identical to the one about which we reason ? Not at all. A person who reasons scientifically can claim the advantage of objectivity, remaining unaffected by emotions and feelings, thanks to their ability to perceive a situation from the outside, not content with what is seen, but even reasoning about what cannot be seen. Science can reason about a past we do not experience, about universes that astronomy cannot grasp, about scales that are not those of humankind.

Reasoning may require the rediscovery of concepts that will never be observed, visible, or perceptible. These concepts are essential for reasoning or calculation, for arithmetic or geometric mathematization. Socrates was the first to assert that if humankind can communicate about the world, it is thanks to these abstract images. The fact that these concepts are not visible does not make them false, but simply means that there exists a world of ideas with a validity different from that of the visible or perceptible world. It is possible that discoveries made through reasoning will go far beyond anything that knowledge will ever allow us to see. And there will constantly be a back-and-forth between experiences and knowledge. New knowledge will compel us to new experiences, and vice versa. Such is the path of the progress of knowledge, and it is endless. The correspondence between the two worlds (sensible and intelligible) is impossible. Visible reality will never fully mimic the real world. Only the world of ideas can be entirely rational, but not the world of visible objects. This was the philosophy Socrates taught me. And it led me to consider mathematics as the very heart of thought, and geometry in particular. It is the science of sciences, the most general science. On the other hand, the Pythagoreans who want to do mathematics without philosophy, especially without dialectic, are mistaken. They cannot perceive the contradictions of reality. They remain trapped in an abstract world of numbers, which they believe to be the only reality, which is wrong.

Rational analysis may require that humankind rediscover the concepts that represent the world and that are not readily apparent to the senses. These concepts are essential for reasoning, calculation, and even the geometric form that emerges from reflection. But the perfection that results from calculations and geometry is not the same as that of sensory perception. In fact, while we must be wary of the world of shadows, which can offer an illusory vision, and while the world of ideas is indeed that of science, we should not expect the world of ideas to lead us exactly back to the visible world. For example, numbers are human concepts and were a fundamental discovery. However, we must not conclude from this that numbers arise directly from sensory reality. We might believe that the numbers one, two, or three are part of our everyday visible reality, but this is incorrect. One plus one equals two is a statement repeatedly verified when we say that one sheep plus one sheep equals two sheep. But this would only be exactly true in the everyday world if two sheep were exactly identical, which is of course impossible.

Shadows can give us some information about objects, and reasoning or calculation can provide other information, but the two worlds—that of perception and that of reflection—will remain two worlds that can never become identical, which makes the search endless. Only the world of ideas can attain the purity, the accuracy, the precision that are the goals of science. The observation of objects will never, and cannot, achieve this purity.

The two worlds will continue to clash for the greater advancement of knowledge, without their struggle ever coming to an end.

Euclid : Plato, you consider geometry the foundation of the world. The straight line, a set of points ; the triangle, the basis of the entire world order, forming the basis of both the dodecahedron and the icosahedron, all the elements used to construct the earth, the sky, and the sea. And everything is founded on the smallest element, the geometric point, which, like everything else, is an idealization. I understand that these mathematical concepts are pure, even beautiful, but I don't approve of considering them the foundation of the world. A point without dimension is nonexistent. A straight line without thickness is imperceptible, invisible. The triangle, made up of four segments, has no more weight, force, or presence than the others. For someone who claims to follow Socratic dialectic, you seem to me much more like an adherent of Pythagorean philosophy, replacing number with the triangle. For Socrates, everything contains its opposite within itself, and this is what makes the world dynamic, always changing. Can you tell me what the opposite is that a point, a line, or a triangle contains, since they are always identical to themselves and immutable ?

Plato, you portray Socrates as a philosopher who only reasons about abstractions, which is far removed from the Socrates I knew. Even when you talk about Socrates philosophizing about human life, you present him as only aiming to discuss with each person the right way to behave in life, about morality, about virtue. As if Socrates claimed to know this right morality, this right virtue, this best way to conduct oneself. What a mistake !

Socrates the philosopher, yes, but Socrates the revolutionary, even more so ! The reason he doesn't preach revolution is because he has experienced it. He knows it's like a natural phenomenon, an event that isn't driven by individual desires, that can't be provoked, that doesn't need to be wished for, like rain or a storm. He doesn't aim merely to philosophize. He aims for societal change, for revolution. But rather than speaking of the means, revolution, he speaks of the end, the future society. He speaks of humanity's profound goals, of happiness. And to change the world, he seeks the means to understand it ; he trains seekers of truth. Only truth is revolutionary. This means he is far removed from the political calculations of the city, in which he has no interest. He is far removed from immediate interests. He doesn't rely on the publicity that political activity provides. He isn't afraid of being isolated. Defending ideas requires detachment from immediate and petty calculations. Socrates establishes a think tank. Its object : the universe. Everything can be discussed. There are no taboos. Everything leads to philosophy. One must learn. Reasoning is not immediate, but is the object of learning. Revolutionaries in too much of a hurry want immediate results and fuss so that their ideas will have an immediate effect. As a result, they make calculations that constantly distance them from the ideas that initially guided them. Changing the world requires understanding how it works, and this is far from obvious. The philosophy this requires does not stem from immediate experience and is often even in complete disagreement with the illusions of appearances. Consequently, he reiterates, one must never cease learning to think. Those who want action at all costs and quick successes will necessarily distance themselves from him, like Xenophon, Charmides, or Alcibiades. Those who wanted a philosophy acceptable to Athens would break with him, like Plato. Those who wanted to reject anyone who wasn't immediately revolutionary would also distance themselves from him, like Antisthenes. Socrates doesn't reproach people. They are as they are. He doesn't moralize to them. He doesn't urge them to be different. He simply allows them to observe their aspirations and how much they diverge from what drives them every day. He imposes neither his goals, nor his ideas, nor his objectives, nor his knowledge of the world. He debates with them because he believes that the seeker of ideas must discuss in order to progress. Socrates knows that our brain has its own little unconscious daimon. At some point during the night, in a dream, or in meditation, this daimon will give you the unexpected little impulse that will overturn what your conscious rational thought tells you, provided you have constantly unraveled and re-unraveled your philosophical preoccupations during the day.

Those who followed Socrates felt more intelligent, but not because he taught them knowledge. That wasn't his method. This method, as we have all seen here, elevated us. It never told us : you know nothing, you are nothing, you are wrong, you understand nothing, you should do this, you should be like that. Socrates invited us to walk together along the path of reasoning, refusing only to stray from it through all the detours to which society is accustomed : politeness, social hypocrisy, reverence for established values, ignorance, or submissive deference to knowledge. This didn't prevent any of us from following our own path and, consequently, from later turning away from him. This doesn't mean that his attitude toward ideas and life didn't profoundly affect us all…

With Socrates, you don't learn something, you don't study a field of knowledge. You learn that you are both far better and far worse than you knew. You discover that you are more ignorant and more knowledgeable than you thought. It's not Socrates who tells you who you are ; it's you who, unintentionally, reveals it to you. But that's not the main point. For Socrates, it's only a necessary step. The individual isn't everything. Social life matters to Socrates. He doesn't deny the existence of social classes and their importance. He doesn't deny the existence of political institutions and social ideologies in the mind of an individual. He discusses publicly with people from all walks of life, and many don't understand him. They see him talking with the poor and oppressed and think he wants to incite them to revolt. They see him debating with the rich and powerful and imagine he wants to convert them to some dogma, some kind of social reform. Complete misunderstanding. Socrates is outraged by the state of society, by poverty, by oppression, by war, by political and social tyranny, but he doesn't make his revolt a rallying cry. He believes that to transform the world, one must first understand it, which means understanding all classes of society. And understanding means self-discovery. The rich don't understand themselves any more spontaneously than the poor, that is, without the process of philosophical inquiry. Power is right in front of us, but its nature is well hidden from everyone's eyes. The dominant ideology also hides behind individual thoughts. Socrates' method aims to overcome these barriers. This mode of discussion is not common and will always surprise people, and many haven't understood it. They see a debate only as an exchange between shared or opposing opinions, between people who already know what they think. Socrates doesn't see it that way. He prefers to think he doesn't know and seeks to lead his interlocutors into a search for something no one knows in advance. In particular, Socrates doesn't know where this discussion will lead him. He follows a methodical path whose end he doesn't know. Because he believes that truth is always to be discovered, rethought, and reconstructed. We think we know many things. And many would find it difficult to live if they constantly had to question everything. But these things we think we know are often precisely what prevents us from thinking, especially since they are so difficult to let go of. They are ideological, social, or customary preconceptions, errors of knowledge, or false philosophies. They are sometimes false assumptions, whether sensory, logical, or conceptual. These are the enemies Socrates must fight. He believes that the world cannot be directly understood and that, to grasp it,We need to build structures of thought that did not exist before. This construction requires patience and reasoning.

This, for Socrates, is the purpose of the debate. There is no master and student, no teacher and student, no citizen and philosopher, but two or more men exploring together an unknown territory, even if one believes oneself to know it. This, Plato, is where the difference between you and your master Socrates begins. For you, the method consists of seeking an absolute, eternal truth, independent of humankind, unchanging and unalterable, which is not within the realm of the perceptible world. For Socrates, the process is human, fallible, never finished, not leading to a ready-made truth, not to an absolute, eternal truth. For you, concepts are objective, existing independently of humankind. For Socrates, we produce the concept. It is a free human creation that aims to encompass reality in ideas used to record facts, to communicate them among us, and to explain the world to us. The concept is therefore a product of human intelligence, for Socrates. It is dynamic. It has a history. It changes according to the times and can change according to the people involved, according to the circumstances. For Socrates, concepts are not situated outside of human life, nor outside of the material world, but rather in the connection between humanity and the world. The production of concepts is an ongoing activity of humankind, whereas, for you, it is established once and for all by God. We humans have produced our tools, invented agriculture, irrigation, and navigation, and have also invented languages, mathematics, and logic.

Approaching the fundamental notion of concept gradually, through definition and word, Socrates asked : "Every object we name has multiple, all different forms, whether it be a rug, an armchair, a tree, or a man. If I were to say to you : 'Now, Meno, here is what I would like to know from you : what name do you give to this thing by which all these forms come together and are all identical ?'" And, in this way, Socrates believed that one could access the formation of the concept, a free human creation enabling people to understand and communicate.

"By thinking, we transform the world," Socrates asserted. For you, Plato, we can only access shadows, the perpetual distortion of a reality that lies outside of us. Of course, some of us think it sufficient to claim you're lying when you invoke Socrates. But, as I believe I've sufficiently demonstrated through my paradoxes, all purely logical statements fall prey to constant, looping contradictions. The same applies to the claim that Socrates accused Plato, saying, "Plato, when you say 'Socrates is right,' you're lying." I would therefore refrain from using this type of formal accusation, but would simply tell you, Plato, that you are mistaken if you believe you are defending our master's views.

Antisthenes : If I shout "By the dog !", Plato, you haven't seen a real dog, not even in your mind. You haven't smelled it, felt the fear, seen the rage. You've only recalled memories, but you haven't yet seen the drooling mastiff before you, the one I'd like to see threatening you, even biting you, so that you'll stop denying its existence, beyond the concept. Because the concept doesn't bite ! There's a great distance between Plato and Socrates. Socrates observes that people manage to create concepts, the objects of reason, from things, the objects of material life that produce a sensory effect. It is concepts that allow people to retrieve the object in their minds from the word and, consequently, to exchange the idea with other people. For Plato, it is these "intelligible forms," as he calls them, that breathe reality into things ! In short, to put it somewhat simplistically, it would be the spirit of the tree that creates the tree ! While Socrates proposes applying the same philosophy to things as to ideas, Plato proposes absolute idealism : only ideas exist, and all lead to the absolute idea. But, if my dog bites Plato, he will see that the reality of the dog is no less than the idea of a dog biting ! The philosophy common, according to Socrates, to ideas and things, is the dialectic of contradictions, according to which the same object contains its own contradiction, and its generalization in the form of an idea must show how the interpenetration of opposites produces the element. This idealism of Plato seems to me the culmination of the conception held by many Athenians, according to whom only ideas matter and not material reality. These same people were averse to manual labor, leaving it to the slaves. Thus, Plato, who despises the sophists, seems to me to share their theoretical disdain for reality… Unlike Plato, I fear I will never be bitten by the idea of a dog…

– Plato You believe that reality is closer to the sensory world than to human thought. Appearances may seem to support your view. However, I would like to ask you : without abstract concepts, are you capable of drawing lessons from sensory experience ? For instance, Antisthenes, who is so proud of having seen a dog in the flesh and who speaks of it here, even though there is no dog in this room, has done more to contradict his own thesis than any of my speeches ! Let us examine his argument. He speaks of a dog. What is "a" and what is "dog" ? For my part, I have no sensory experience of "a" ! I have never seen one, I have never touched one, I have never smelled one, I have never heard one ! The same goes for "dog." I look everywhere. I see Antisthenes, but I see no dog ! How can he speak of things that do not exist without resorting to concepts ? Wouldn't he be a follower of the abstract concepts conceived by our master, Socrates ? Are there any sensory experiences in which one doesn't have to rely on memory ? Yesterday, I saw that dog. Today, I see the same dog. It's Euthydemus's dog, the one he was with the day before yesterday. How can I be so sure ? I'm no longer the day before yesterday. I receive no sensory impressions from such a distant time. I no longer see the scene. It's an abstraction for me to recall it ! There's no way to compare two situations without resorting to abstract concepts. Sensory certainty itself is only possible through the use of concepts. Take the sense of smell, for example. I say that I smelled the roast before entering the room. What roast ? I don't see it. What is a roast ? I haven't touched it. I don't know what it is. Et cetera, et cetera… Giving primacy to the senses over reasoning is a fundamental error. We are beings whose defining characteristic is not necessarily a superior sense. The dog smells better than we do. The eagle sees better than we do. The monkey touches better than we do. However, none of them seems capable of complex reasoning, such as meeting in Megara and discussing the meaning of Socrates' philosophy… If God gave us this special sense of reasoning, it was certainly not for nothing, nor to assign it a role inferior to the simple act of seeing, smelling, and touching… Of course, one might believe that a dog, a cat, and a human are the foundations of the concept of "one," which would not exist without the sensory experience of a thing in multiple forms. This is a profound error. The monkey sees an apple, a tree, and a human. Yet, it probably did not invent mathematics. "One" is a concept and not simply a grouping or intersection of sensory experiences. Some of you thought you were undermining geometry by asserting that a point is already purely abstract since it has neither length, nor width, nor area, nor weight, nor volume. However,They say that there is no object our senses can perceive with such absolute precision. They conclude that the point does not exist and that the senses are right. But their reasoning itself backfires. Where does an idea like the point come from, an idea that is not derived from our experience, since they themselves emphasize that this idea is not a generalization of experience ? We have no experience of an object without any kind of dimension. Well then, the world of ideas truly exists, and it does not overlap with the sensible world. We can think of things we do not see. We constantly talk about things and ideas we will probably never see. When one of us says Pericles, we know we won't see him again. When the Persians are mentioned, everyone jumps, and yet they are not there, at the door. Ideas, therefore, have a terrifying effect, my dear Antisthenes, as potent as the rabid, drooling dog you would have me encounter face to face… We do not see Socrates, and yet we are here exclusively because of him, for him, with him… Socrates has become far more than his real self, with his old cloak and his words. He has become a principle. And if we are here, it is because this principle is just as strong, Socrates dead, and perhaps even stronger. Socrates was indeed an idea and not merely a being of flesh and blood !

Eubulides : Plato, you chose mathematics as the key subject of reflection because you chose idealization as the ultimate goal of all scientific study, and also as the moral goal of humankind. However, we know full well, in our daily lives, that matter, humankind, and society are not rigorous in the same way that mathematics is. All people can agree on a mathematical statement, regardless of their social, ethnic, or regional origin, regardless of their culture, regardless of the era. They can predict in advance the result of the same calculation or the same type of drawing, performed by someone else. On the other hand, we cannot predict in advance what will happen when we break a vase, when we visit a neighbor, or when we go to war. Of course, we ask the Oracle of Delphi what we should do. But the Pythia only answers yes or no, and we are left to interpret the explanatory sentences that accompany this answer, which are far from clear. The error can then stem from a misinterpretation. This shows that human life is not as rigorous as mathematics. Praying to the gods is not enough either, since different gods can be in conflict with each other and may diverge in their positions on human affairs.

Unlike you, Socrates never considered idealization (number, figure, abstract notion) to be superior to reality. He certainly developed the notion of the concept as a communicable generalization essential to the functioning of the human mind, but this does not imply that the abstract is placed outside or above the real. The concepts he spoke of most often were those of goodness, beauty, the notion of society, of the human being, of thought, and of science—all notions that lack mathematical definitions. People can agree on the concept of number as well as on that of happiness, but this will not make them identical in reality. For example, everyone recognizes that, mathematically, one plus one equals two. But reality does not allow us to assert that one sheep plus one sheep equals two sheep. Such an equality would presuppose that the two sheep are identical, which is impossible. One can mathematically be equal to one, but one man is not equal to another man, one sheep is not equal to another sheep, and no object is identical to another. Conceptual identity exists and has meaning, but not identity between two things. This does not invalidate the mathematical approach, unless it claims to perfectly describe the real world.

– Plato : If the perfection of the concept, of the rational, of the abstract, of the geometric figure, of number, of virtue, or of wisdom were merely arbitrary inventions, without real meaning, how could we have them in our consciousness ? How could two very different people exchange opinions based on these concepts and accept statements based on them, regardless of their origin, their beliefs, their culture, or their era ? How is it that we manage to base arguments that have not been contradicted on such foundations, if these foundations had no real basis ? Conversely, why deny that imperfection is an approximation of perfection, that the approximate is an attempt to approach precision, that measurement leads toward the exact result ? Certainly, the circle we draw is never perfectly circular. All mathematicians know this. On the other hand, it is the circle conceived as perfectly circular, whose points are always the same distance from the center, that forms the basis of even the most approximate drawing. The ideal is not merely a vague aspiration corresponding to nothing real : it is a standard of reality. All circles drawn by imperfect geometers with imperfect tools on imperfect surfaces share the common goal of aiming for the perfect standard of the circle. The same is true of Goodness, Justice, the State, and Man. "No one has ever encountered the concept of 'man' in the street," Antisthenes quips, and on this point, one can easily agree with him. Yet when we speak of man, everyone understands who we are talking about without even seeing him. Except, perhaps, Antisthenes, who thinks we are talking about a dog !

Aeschines : Your vision, Plato, is certainly interesting, very intelligent even. Your idealism is logically pushed to its extreme, and it bears very important fruit. You can be proud of its origin. So why, in your writings, do you attribute it to Socrates ? It is by no means a concept you owe to Socrates, for he, far from believing in the existence of two worlds, one of shadows or the visible and the other of ideas or concepts, believed in a single world encompassing man and nature, thought and the universe. It seems, moreover, as your allegory of the cave confirms, that this reflects your conception of the separation between rulers and ruled—which is no more Socrates'—since you attribute to the multitude only the capacity to be interested in the world of sensations or shadows, the world of the rational, that of concepts, reasoning, and calculations, being reserved for an elite…

The philosophy, or love of wisdom, that Socrates professes is not opposed to an interest in human thought, and especially not to an interest in human life and social life. Socrates' "I know nothing" meant that, in awe of the richness of the world and society, humankind is constantly learning. And, for Socrates, even the least learned person is a philosopher, whereas, according to you, philosophers are an elite, the tiny minority capable of reaching the essence. The defining characteristic of humankind, of every human being, according to Socrates, is to be perpetually a human apprentice. Socrates seeks no definitive knowledge, nor any definitive morality. Plato, you seek the exact opposite : for you, the existence of authentic knowledge requires that the non-illusory world be unchanging. For you, essence lies purely in the world of ideas, in an absolute concept, whereas the real basis, for Socrates, is in actual life, in physical, human, and social reality. For Socrates, dialectic is the contradictory law of real change. Socrates, unlike you, did not scorn the materialist thought of Anaxagoras, nor the physical thought of Democritus and Anaximander, but even studied them thoroughly. He also did not reject Zeno's thought, while suggesting that he make greater use of the notion of contradiction. On the contrary, your conception of definition opposes Socrates' idea that the concept contains its own contradiction. You are certainly the most intelligent among us, but surely also our master's greatest disappointment. Wasn't it for you, Plato, that Socrates said : "What would be beautiful in the intelligence of a man whom the riches of the world do not marvel at ?"

Your absence during Socrates' final moments speaks volumes about the cooling of your relationship and the divergence of your viewpoints. You defend the idea of the Good, which you claim to have inherited from Socrates, but for him, it is not a definitive, moral concept. For you, dialectic is the science of immutable truth, whereas for Socrates, it is the science of confrontation, contradiction, and change—diametrically opposed. Man is at the center of Socrates' philosophy. The metaphysical being, the founder of the world, is at the center of yours. For Socrates, man is imperfection, the concrete, ongoing struggle. For you, the Idea is abstract perfection. Admit it, the character "Socrates" in your dialogues should really be called Plato ! I assure you, we would read your dialogues with far more interest and far less embarrassment...

Eubulides : Plato, you are a proponent of dianoia, or the discursive method of intellectual understanding, and not of Socrates' dialectic of contradictions, which encompasses the contradictions of being and those of thought. You developed the theory of form, or eido, and not Socrates' theory of the concept. You defend the search for the arche, the ultimate fundamental principle of the universe, and not Socrates' scientific method. You defend the existence of immutable and eternal fundamental truths, or anamnesis, whereas our master sought only truths on our human scale, that is to say, fragile, personal, and uncertain, and was more concerned with the questions than with the answers. And it is not the political vision that brings you closer to Socrates, far from it. Plato, you distrust democracy by considering that political competence is not a competence of the people. You criticize the democratic system for allowing the ignorant to believe they know, simply because their opinion is sought. Not only do you think the masses don't know what justice is, but you believe they cannot possibly know. Socrates believed that every person, regardless of their social or educational background, is searching for what is good, in order to act accordingly. Plato, my dear friend, you are certainly the most capable philosopher among us, but you are by no means a defender of Socrates' thought, even though you constantly invoke his character in your dialogues to defend your own views.

Phaedo : You are right, Plato, to attribute to Socrates the true discovery of the concept, the means by which humankind communicates about the world using abstractions, images, and generalizations. But what you consider to be the very image of the concept—mathematical notions—are very far from it. Indeed, for Socrates, the concept must contain within itself its own contradiction, just as every object and every situation derives its dynamism from its internal dialectic, from the internal struggle between its opposites. Humankind, for example, is neither good nor bad, but constantly torn between opposing tendencies. It is the site of a perpetual struggle. Society is not stable, but itself constantly pulled between opposing forces. Nature also presents incessant struggles, both within itself and within each of its parts. The concept must not only take into account this dialectical character of the notion one wishes to render abstract, but its definition must even be the clearest possible expression of this struggle. Those who have engaged most deeply in discussions with Socrates will all have observed that, far from reaching a conclusion, the debate, starting from one alternative, led to a new alternative. Such is Socrates' dialectic. For him, the one is inconceivable without containing within it the plurality. And the plurality has no other purpose than to lead to unity. Now, the "one" of mathematics is equal to itself and not to a plurality. This is not a dialectical notion. The concept of number is too fixed to be an element of a dynamic conception.

The thought that Socrates defended was not mathematical thought, but dialectical thought, in which everything contains its own opposite. Every person, for example, simultaneously desires a thing and its opposite. It is common for what attracts them to also repel them. Socrates rightly pointed out that a just person commits injustices, that good also contains elements of evil, that a concept must contain its opposite, explaining how the two are intertwined while simultaneously conflicting. Every society, like every living being or every part of the material universe, is founded on contradictions. He was thus very far removed from mathematical thought, in which a notion is not contradictory : two parallel lines are not simultaneously intersecting ; two numbers are not simultaneously equal and different ; a figure is not simultaneously triangular and rectangular, and so on. Only contradiction allows us to conceive of the dynamics of the world, whereas number, point, and line have a fixed character. Rain and sunshine are opposing forces, yet they are united within the cloud, a structure produced by both. The same colors can destroy each other in a painting (producing black) or complement each other in rays of light to produce white light. The concept must account for the contradictions of reality. The image of a world without contradiction would be a world without change or movement. One of the merits of Zeno's paradoxes was to show that movement opposes any logic of exclusive yes/no, without internal contradiction. If one can say that an object is completely motionless and another is completely in motion, then movement does not exist because one cannot pass, even in infinite time, from non-movement to movement !

Plato, you aim to remove the contradictions that exist within Athenian or Greek society, whereas Socrates did not seek to erase them, nor to hide them, nor even to diminish them, but, on the contrary, to bring them to consciousness. The evolution of Greek society is the product of its contradictions, and its crisis stems from the phase in which these contradictions are exacerbated to the point of becoming explosive. This is what makes Socrates' philosophy revolutionary and yours, Plato, conservative. Some of you claim that Socrates did not want to engage in the quarrels of the philosophy of science, which he considered pointless. This is not accurate. He had indeed been forced to renounce them publicly, but continued to reflect on them privately. And, above all, he believed that the philosophical debate was fundamentally the same whether it concerned the personal goals of the individual, the social goals of the City, or the world of the conservation and change of matter. The advantage, according to Socrates, of using the theme of everyday life was that everyone would have their own opinion on the matter, allowing for an equal debate between the average person, the scholar, and the member of the ruling class. Each would believe they possessed their own answer and could thus contribute meaningfully to the discussion. And, once again, Socrates did not want to impose his lessons, but rather to allow everyone to fully develop their own thoughts.

– Aeschines : Aristophanes knew that Socrates continued to study nature, and in his play, he mocked the philosopher who falls into a well while trying to gaze at the stars. This was a way of denouncing him for always wanting to give a philosophical interpretation to nature. This would, in fact, be one of the charges at his trial. As a young man, Socrates had been forced to leave and officially renounce his teacher Anaxagoras, who had been condemned for atheism by Athens. He had decided, therefore, to opt for the study of the philosophy of social life rather than that of nature, which had just been rejected by the city. For him, this was simply a way of continuing to philosophize in the same direction, since he did not separate social life from nature. But he did not want the same thing to happen to his disciples : for them to be forced to renounce him.

Xenophon : It is true that Socrates had studied mathematical and physical theories with several masters in these fields, but he believed that it was impossible to decide between the various theories of his time, whether that of Parmenides (the unity of being), Leucippus (infinite multiplicity), Heraclitus of Ephesus (the perpetual motion of bodies, or everything is born and everything dies), or Zeno of Elea (absolute inertia). For some, everything changes. For others, change is an illusion. For some, matter is one. For others, it is plural. For some, all truth lies in the stars. For still others, it lies in the study of matter on Earth. For some, everything is water, earth, and fire. For others, everything is made up of triangles. For still others, everything is number. Deciding between these opposing theses is a daunting task, given the current state of our knowledge. Engaging in the debate is endless and ultimately futile. Of course, Socrates developed philosophical concepts about the world, but he did not claim that one should derive rules of conduct from observing the heavens. For that, he relied on social norms, the virtue of citizens, and divine providence expressed through oracles and offerings. If someone wished to rise above human understanding, he advised them to practice divination, to seek to know the will of the gods through the signs they send us. It was his adversaries who, in order to discredit and eliminate him, tried to spread the rumor that he claimed to understand the celestial bodies, the stars, the universe, lightning, and thunder in his philosophical studies, attacking the Athenian belief that these things carry messages from the gods to guide our actions. By Jupiter, I can attest that these accusations are false !

Eubulides : I don't think Socrates ever relied more on oracles and offerings than on the pursuit of truth through science. He certainly believed that a debate could more easily be established on happiness, virtue, and the proper way to educate citizens than on matter and motion. And above all, he thought that the same philosophy applies to all questions, because there is only one world. When he wanted to develop the philosophical conceptions of those with whom he debated, he simply had to take each person's favorite topic as his theme. With the stonemasons, he spoke of masonry. With the military, of the art of war. And so on… But if we look beyond appearances, Socrates was always pursuing the same debate. His thesis is that we need a philosophy to understand the world, regardless of our profession, social standing, or origins. And it was on man that he relied, not on the gods, on conscience and not on belief.

Socrates is a believer in knowledge. However, knowledge is opposed to the gods, as illustrated by the myth of Prometheus, who stole the treasure of knowledge and paid dearly for it with endless suffering. Prometheus replied to Hermes, the servant of the gods, “I hate all the gods ; they are indebted to me, and by them I suffer unjust treatment. (…) Know this clearly, I would not exchange my misery for servitude like yours. I believe I would rather be enslaved to this rock than be a faithful messenger of Zeus, father of the gods !” Socrates' “Man is the measure of all things” stands in opposition to a discourse of the type “God is the measure of all things” or “morality is the measure of all things.” Knowledge, according to Socrates, is a human endeavor, that is to say, a search by man for his own existence and not for an ideal universe, and therefore not a quest for God.

Socrates ' "Know thyself" meant that man should seek his truths within himself and not in divine mythologies, miracles, oracles, sacrifices… We note that he only ever quoted the first part of what was inscribed on the pediment of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (a god whose name he rarely spoke), which read : "Know thyself, leave the world to the gods." For Socrates, man becomes the measure of all things. Socrates explained to Xenophon that "men are never happier than when they know themselves." This is a very different approach from seeking to know God and deriving a way of life from that knowledge…

Moments before his death, in his prison, Socrates discoursed on beliefs about death : “When the dead arrive at the place to which their respective daemons lead them, they are first judged, both those who led honest and pious lives and those who lived badly. Those who are recognized as having maintained a middle ground in their conduct go to the Acheron, embark in boats that await them, and carry them to the Acherusias swamp. There they dwell and purify themselves ; if they have committed injustices, they bear the punishment and are absolved ; if they have done good deeds, they receive the reward, each according to their merit.” Those deemed incurable due to the enormity of their crimes, who have committed numerous and grave sacrileges, many homicides against justice and the law, or any other crime of the same kind, are destined to be cast into Tartarus, from which they never emerge. Those recognized as having committed expiable, though great, sins—for example, those who, in a fit of anger, have committed acts of violence against their father or mother and have spent the rest of their lives in repentance, or who have committed murder under similar circumstances—must necessarily be cast into Tartarus ; but when, after falling in, they have spent a year there, the current casts them back out : the murderers into Cocytus, those who have laid hands on their father or mother into Pyriphlegethon. When the current carried them to the edge of the Acherusias swamp, they called out loudly, some to those they had killed, others to those they had violated, then they begged and implored them to let them into the swamp and receive them. If they were persuaded, they entered and saw the end of their suffering ; if not, they were again carried off to Tartarus, and from there into the rivers, and their punishment continued until they had persuaded those they had wronged ; for such was the penalty imposed upon them by the judges. Finally, those who distinguished themselves by the holiness of their lives and were recognized as such were exempted from these subterranean dwellings and freed from this imprisonment ; they ascended to a pure abode and dwelt on the earth. And among these very people, those who have been completely purified by philosophy live in the future without bodies and in dwellings even more beautiful than the others. But it is not easy to describe them, and the time remaining to me at this moment would not suffice.”
And he concluded : “To maintain that these things are as I have described them is not fitting for a sensible man.”

So, even at the very gates of death, Socrates did not waver : he believed neither in hells nor in paradises, those images that men themselves produced to rest from the fear of death.

The Greek gods succeeded one another without supplanting each other, just as ancient forms of social domination overlapped without eliminating one another. Consequently, theology transformed into a history of the gods. In the beginning, there was Chaos, then Gaia and Eros. Next came Cronus, Zeus, and Rhea. The hierarchy of the gods emerged alongside that of societies. Human kingship produced god-kings. Agricultural societies gave rise to goddesses. Warrior societies produced heroes, half-divine beings. Centralized society chose to centralize the gods. The twelve greatest gods then reigned over Olympus, ruling a multitude of other gods and heroes. And now, with modern Greece, thinkers like Plato offer us a new perspective with a single god. But Socrates did not reason in this way. He believed that man should question himself about his own actions and not just question the gods, because the latter are only a reflection of human behavior…

In his speech to the tribunal, Socrates only mentions a deity once, when he refers to Achilles' mother, Thetis, as a goddess. He never mentions Apollo, Zeus, or any of the other Athenian gods. Socrates mocks Meletus for mistaking him for Anaxagoras and claims that Meletus asserts the Sun is a stone and the Moon is made of earth, instead of being gods as most people believe. But he doesn't explicitly state that he believes the Sun and Moon are gods. As for Socrates' religion, it is based on trust in each individual's moral compass and their ability to find their own path in life. It has nothing to do with sacrifices, the need to make the gods speak during these rites by examining entrails, or other beliefs common to the Athenians.

Xenophon : By Zeus ! It was wrongly accused before the Athenians of despising the gods of Athens and introducing new ones. You will notice that, even at his trial, Socrates was not accused of not believing in the gods in general. I am astonished that the Athenians could have believed that Socrates held guilty opinions about the gods, he who had said and done nothing impious, he who always respected in his actions the virtue he defended in his words. Socrates had observed and personally experienced the various manifestations of spirits in the lives of men : dreams, contemplative states, visions, the prophecies of the Pythia, inner voice, premonition, trance, hallucination, hypnosis, and so on. He in no way sought to deny their importance in human life and, on the contrary, wanted to discuss further how men and women lived in harmony with their inner voices. Launching these kinds of pointless debates will do nothing to improve the lot of the Athenians, the Greeks, or humanity in general. Our problems are too serious and too urgent to resolve to get bogged down in such discord. The way we govern and defend the city must remain central to our concerns, as must the way we want citizens, from the humblest to the most powerful, to behave in their personal and collective lives.

– Aeschines : There's no point in hiding the gravity of Socrates' positions from us. Socrates' enemies were well aware that they went far beyond a few reproaches concerning the gods of Athens. They were much more explicit on the political front. And, on this subject, they weren't just hearsay. Socrates was indeed fighting the policies of the ruling class. Admittedly, he fought them primarily with words, but this ruling class and its politicians believed that, given Athens' critical situation, these criticisms were dangerous for them. When Socrates had suggested before the tribunal that he was merely advocating virtue, the response had been violent :

“But, by Jupiter,” the accuser exploded in anger, “he was inciting contempt for established laws, since he was asserting that it was madness to rely on the choice of a black or white bean, on drawing lots, to choose the magistrates of a republic, while no one would want to trust chance to choose a ship's pilot, an architect, or a flute player, even though the mistakes these men might make would be far less harmful to society than the mistakes of those who govern the State. Such speeches inspire young people with contempt for the constitution and drive them to violence.”

– Hermogenes : I had the opportunity to discuss the gods with Socrates. I explained to him that, in my opinion, the gods, being omniscient as well as omnipotent, are so close to me that, thanks to their care, they never lose sight of me, neither night nor day, wherever I go, whatever I am about to do. Moreover, since they foresee the consequences of every action, they tell me, by sending me messengers of words, dreams, and birds, what I should do and what I should not do ; for my part, when I obey them, I never regret it ; but there has already happened that I did not believe them and I was punished for it. When I explained this to Socrates, he replied : "Well, there's nothing incredible about that ; However, for my part, what I would enjoy learning is how you honor them to make such friends of them.”
This is how Socrates argued : he wasn't debating belief directly, but rather the lives of men, including whether those men believed in gods. This may sometimes have given some people the impression that Socrates had said he believed in the gods or that he didn't. It's very difficult to answer this question. In fact, Socrates had chosen to steer the discussion toward something else : how men construct their thoughts and how they choose their way of life.

– Plato : How can we question the gods ? On what basis can we answer this question ? I propose we reflect on what comes to mind and how it comes to us. Let's take mathematics, for example. Everyone recognizes that humans can conceive of mathematics, and this domain is characterized by a perfection quite unusual in human life. This is proof that there is a truth that transcends the world we know. As the circle, the triangle, and the hexagon show, we can conceive of perfection, and we know that the one who conceived air, fire, and water certainly possessed this capacity to conceive of perfection. The world around us was conceived, and certainly it was conceived by a single builder, from simple elements like the circle, the triangle, and the hexagon. Despite the diversity of appearances, the existence of the world suggests to us that its construction was the work of a single mind capable of building the world as a whole. Of course, this world is difficult for us to understand because we cannot directly access the elements of its structure. Like the men in the cave, we perceive only shadows, projections onto the imperfect back wall of the cave. However, the few elements of perfection that, despite our limited capacity, we manage to grasp—for example, in mathematics—show us that the perfection of order is best suited to understanding this world whose appearance is disorder.

– Aeschines It is understandable that such opposing opinions exist regarding Socrates' views on the gods. Indeed, some make a mistake in taking Socrates' methods of discussion for positive assertions. I myself attended, along with Xenophon, a conversation between Socrates and Aristodemus. Xenophon is convinced that Socrates defended the existence of the gods and their providence. I believe the opposite. Socrates debated according to the knowledge and convictions of his interlocutors, defending the gods with an atheist and opposing them with a believer, just as he defended politics with a participant who detested politics and opposed it with a politician. At the same time, he discussed within the framework of his interlocutor's thinking and not with the aim of defending opposing objectives. Let us not forget that Socrates believed that internal contradiction (and not external contradiction) is the driving force of everything, illuminating all things. This is why he explains why believers make offerings when he discusses them with Aristodemus, who ridicules them. He is not trying to defend the gods, but to understand humanity. He sees these offerings not as ridiculous behaviors, but as fundamental human attitudes that should be studied and understood, rather than simply ridiculed by non-believers. Furthermore, he believes that Aristodemus will learn more about his atheism by delving into the reasons of believers than by laughing at them. He thus asks Aristodemus to find atheistic explanations for the questions that, in the eyes of believers, legitimize the existence of the gods : why does man possess the capacities that distinguish him from animals, how was the world made, how is it that we have organs that function effectively if they were not made by gods, where does life and death come from, where does intelligence come from, if all this was not produced by the will of the gods ? In this sense, Socrates plays devil's advocate, and this is one of the points that often irritated his interlocutors, who didn't see at all where he was going with this. It is up to the atheist to demonstrate that he is capable, without invoking the gods, of explaining the differences between humans and animals, the development of human intelligence, the reasons for human behavior, both individual and social, and so on. On the other hand, Socrates discusses much more the practice of religion, how it influences people's beliefs and actions, than its validity in itself, because he is primarily interested in how people live. And death is part of life. Consequently, he discusses what believers should do : for example, should they make large offerings, or only those that correspond to their financial means ? He explains that, for the believer,The gods should not be more moved by a lavish gift than by one proportionate to the giver's means, especially if that giver is poor. It's clear that his concern is much more than simply ensuring that people don't ruin themselves over the dead. Furthermore, he explains that once the soul has departed, the dead person should be buried promptly. He agrees that one can cherish fond memories of the deceased, but he believes that the lives of those who remain should not be sacrificed for this purpose. This means he considers a person to be definitively gone when they die, and that it is pointless to try to preserve their body at all costs. This rather contradicts the beliefs of those who believe in immortality. Generally speaking, Socrates advised treating the living well, rather than the dead.

When Socrates discussed the gods, he was actually discussing the way men live. For example, we didn't hear Socrates take an oath "by Jupiter" or "by Apollo," but rather "by Juno," which implied that he was appealing to the female gods to distinguish himself from all those who constantly invoked the male gods. Again, does he believe more in the female gods, or does he simply want to signal his opposition to the subjugation of women ?

Let us not forget that Socrates discussed with each of his interlocutors based on that person's own goals in life and their own conceptions of existence. His starting point was always each individual's personal answer to the question : "What is the purpose of life ?" This meant that he spoke about art with the artist, politics with the politician, war with the soldier, discourse with the orator, dreams with the dreamer, and belief with the believer. This does not mean that he himself was a dreamer or a believer. Rather, he wished to lead each person to a deeper understanding of the meaning of their goals in life. He believed that humans should act as consciously as possible. This is very different from wanting to follow the gods. Following one's own conscience (one's daimon) is not about adhering to an externally imposed morality. It is up to each individual to question for themselves what is good, and beliefs affirm knowledge collectively for all. Socrates believed that what matters to a person is how they lived, while the believer thinks that what counts is what happens at death and after. Each person must find their own path, whereas religious people believe that doctrine should dictate everyone's actions. Making each individual the judge of their own actions and thoughts is the opposite of appealing to gods or a god to judge them.

– Critobulus : Socrates asserted that "Man is the only animal that believes in gods," but did this signify, for him, human superiority or human strangeness ? Did it mean that humans had invented the gods, or that the idea of the existence of gods had simply taken hold of them ? It's not clear. Was it an expression of greater respect for humanity, in its capacity to know the gods, or, on the contrary, a greater ridicule of the human species which, in its great presumption, went so far as to invent them ? I have the impression that Socrates was more likely to laugh at humanity's presumption in creating gods than to endorse it.

– Plato : Of course, citizens have no reason, in the current situation, to respect the gods, given the ridiculous way in which they have been portrayed by poets, particularly Hesiod and Homer. How can you possibly have any regard for gods who are weak, greedy, lying, vicious, jealous, cruel, capable of committing murder and other misdeeds, just like humans ? Such gods, who violently oppose each other, do not act wisely, and offer nothing positive for the moral development of the citizen, for the education of younger generations, for social cohesion, or for the stability of the state. On the contrary, the state must ensure that the image of God is one of perfection, immutability, continuity, truth, and security. Every person must be able to find a reference point in this, regardless of their origin, social standing, or personal history. It is the greatest crime of the poets to have presented the gods with all the flaws of mortals. How could they possibly inspire any respect ? This description by the poets of ancient Greek society leads us to believe that the vices and flaws of the modern world have always existed, that the ideal does not exist, and that only individual interests prevail and always will. How can you expect children to be educated to build an ideal society, to be capable of governing the city in the general interest instead of seeking immediate gains and illusory success ? Depravity, corruption, and moral laxity can only result. God should serve to remind us what good is. Our gods do not play this role at all. They are constantly at war, whereas social peace should be their primary virtue, the example they set for citizens… As for Socrates, far from neglecting individual morality, goodness, virtue, justice, and righteousness, he constantly sought them, striving to reach this ideal that we rightly call God.

– Phaedo The very foundation of belief in the gods is that peoples do not build themselves, but are built by kings, by heroes, by beings who surpass them. Needless to say, Socrates fought against such a conception. It is people who make their own history, even if they don't do it haphazardly and don't act in the way they generally believe. What Socrates criticized in the myths disseminated by Homer and Hesiod is not what you criticize them for, Socrates. You regret that these poets did not disseminate stories that legitimize the State, the institutions, the dominant ideology. Socrates criticizes them for having invented a false heroism, masking the true aims of the ruling classes of ancient Greece, the objectives of their wars, their alliances and betrayals. And above all, he criticizes them for making people believe that the State built them. That's false ! Greece was born, and gave birth to its crafts, industry, commerce, and fleet, in a society that did not know the concept of a state, even when it had elected kings. The development of the Hellenic world was not the product of the domination of states like Sparta or Athens. No, it was peoples, seeking protection against warlike invasions, who colonized the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The conquest of the vast trade routes of a powerful state was by no means the goal of these Greeks who spread the world of the Hellenes ! Being dominated by a powerful state is not an objective for the common people. Consequently, people are not compelled to believe in gods who decide their fate for them. The central idea of religions and superstitions is the belief that humans have no choice : their lives are supposedly already decided elsewhere, beyond their control, in the material universe they know. Our friend Hippocrates of Kos, also a great disciple of Socrates, was a physician renowned far beyond his region for demonstrating that illnesses could be explained by natural forces without resorting to beliefs, gods, demons, or various forms of sorcery. He thus showed that epilepsy was an illness like any other and not an expression of demonic possession. He developed a medical method for examining patients, based on studying their past, the events that occurred at the time the illness began, examining the symptoms, and so on. The central figure in all religions is a destiny that is imposed upon humankind. Whether called Apollo, Zeus, or by other names, a god is not dependent on human intervention. To believe in such a god is therefore to believe that the essence of human destinies is decided elsewhere than where humans themselves can intervene. Beyond religions, Socrates primarily fought against the idea that man cannot intervene in his own destiny.

– Metrodorus : I believe that Socrates defended a philosophy of nature, in which there is no need for gods external to the world. Human beings do not exist in a world separate from that of matter, animals, plants, and even things, from the earth to the stars. It is humans who have given life to the gods they have invented, and Socrates never participated in the charades of false gods. He always believed that people should first reason using their own capacity for judgment, rather than asking priests to judge for them. He allowed friends to consult the Pythia, relying first on the way the question was posed and then on the way the answer was interpreted, so that the rational mind of humankind would take charge of responding correctly to the situation.

Xenophon : You're mistaken. It was the domination imposed by Athens on the rest of Greece that Socrates fought against, including ideological and religious domination. Consequently, he didn't align himself with the Olympian gods, but for political reasons, not religious ones, because he would have been an atheist. Even when accusing him, Athens didn't claim to see Socrates as an enemy of the gods and religion in general, but as an enemy of the state religion specific to the city, which Athens aimed to impose on all of Greece. At his trial, everyone could see that, accused of not believing in the Athenian gods, the name of Apollo didn't even cross his lips ! Let's not forget that his friend Euripides called Apollo, one of the principal gods of Athens, a "wicked man," and didn't hesitate to insult Aphrodite and Artemis. And Euripides thus reflected Socrates' point of view, since they discussed each play together in detail before it was performed. Let us not forget that his other friend, Alcibiades, present here, had been accused, on the eve of his departure at the head of the Athenian fleet—certainly wrongly, but this matters little to the slanderers—of having mutilated the faces of the statues of Hermes in Athens. The fact that the Pythia of Delos had chosen Socrates as the best of the Athenians further reinforced the risk he represented as a figure beyond the spiritual boundaries of the city. The city of Delphi was opposed to Athenian domination, whether political or ideological. No one in Greece dared openly oppose the Pythia of Delphi, but Athens was far from pleased that Socrates, publicly supported by Delphi and considered by them "the wisest man in the city," was becoming an obstacle to the establishment of gods specific to Athens and who sought to impose themselves on all of Greece. Alcibiades was not the only one of Socrates' disciples who was used against him.

It is true that the accusation played on two fronts and could sometimes seem to condemn Socrates for atheism. Critias of Athens was thus one of the grounds for Socrates' accusation, and this political enemy was also marked by religious convictions. Had he not been a disciple of Socrates before participating in the regime established in Athens under Spartan leadership after the Athenian defeat ? Yet Critias had displayed, in his plays, a provocative atheism. He too had been labeled a sophist, hostile to the gods of Athens, and therefore a critic serving to undermine Athens' confidence in its own strength. Finally, in Aristophanes' theatrical accusation in his famous play "The Clouds," there was an accusation of atheism. Diagoras of Melos having been accused of atheism, Aristophanes cleverly referred to our master as "Socrates of Melos." But these accusations of atheism are unfounded : Socrates was never an atheist and never participated in debates about the gods, abstract disputes he considered pointless. He did not discuss these subjects, believing it useless to debate rationally what belongs not to the realm of reason, but to the realm of emotion. Aside from the slanderers who sought to discredit him, one cannot attribute to Socrates any general rejection of all the gods, for he did not develop such a viewpoint, while also refusing to grant Athens any recognition of its own gods.

– Aristodemus : A plague on the gods and the religious ! That's what every follower of Socrates should be able to proclaim, and I'm astonished to hear a completely different discourse here. Socrates was condemned for condemning the gods, and you continue to defend these gods in whose name our master was killed. I can only call that treason and deceit. People are led by the nose in the name of the gods. They are driven to destroy one another, to wage war. The gods serve only to push people into submission to dictatorships, into submission to exploitation, to slavery. They do nothing to humanize the world but to make it more barbaric. And we are still asked to make sacrifices and offerings to the gods so that society continues to become harsher for the oppressed and gentler for the oppressors ! Go ahead ! Bow down before Zeus, Apollo, or even Hera, if that amuses you ! The gods will never save you from anything, least of all your cowardice ! Bow down like this before a so-called destiny imposed upon you, a destiny that serves only the ruling classes ! But don't say that Socrates taught you to act this way, because by saying so, you are lying ! He never knelt before the ruling class, even at the cost of his life. Don't tarnish his memory by spreading lies about his thought ! For by acting this way, you are killing him far more than the powers that be and the Athenian ruling classes ever could. They took advantage of a moment of confusion among the Athenian people, but they know that public opinion will turn in Socrates' favor. But you, the so-called disciples, are preparing the way forward by ensuring that the people no longer find any meaning in the way Socrates aspired to transform society. To the fire with the exploiters, the oppressors and their defenders : the rulers, the political powers, the religious institutions, the ideologies of submission ! As for the arguments about Euripides only attacking the gods of Athenian Olympus, let us remember that Euripides, and with him Socrates, wrote that "Since the gods do ugly things, commit base actions, they are not gods !"

Simmias : For me, Socrates consulted his personal daemon, but this "daemon" wasn't a god. He knew that by reflecting, pondering, and dreaming, answers would come to him—answers he didn't initially know. He trusted, or felt compelled to believe, the ideas suggested by his inner soul. This isn't the same as believing in the gods. It was more like a personal daemon speaking to Socrates as if nature were conversing with him... Through meditation, he detected another voice dictating answers different from those of his own conscience, but he considered it a daemon of his own. Meditation, dreaming, or reflection didn't mean prayer, offerings to the gods, gifts to priests, or recourse to soothsayers. To Euthydemus, who said to him, "It seems, Socrates, that the gods treat people with even more kindness than other men, if it is true that, without being questioned by you, they tell you in advance what you should do and what you should avoid," he replied, "You too will recognize that you can know this in advance, but on one condition : do not wait for the gods to reveal themselves to you. Simply observe what is happening around you and wait for answers yourself. If the gods exist, these answers can only be those they have suggested to you." Note that Euthydemus knew that Socrates did not question the gods, and therefore expected nothing from offerings, sacrifices, oracles, preachers, predictions, or other forms of sorcery...

On the other hand, Socrates seemed religious to some because he meditated a great deal. But it was a way of concentrating, of letting his mind weigh and re-weigh his thoughts and dialogues. Socrates often reminded us that the leisure of doing nothing is the most precious possession. It seemed strange to us that he would defend idleness, inaction, and passivity in this way. We didn't understand this idea, which he nevertheless considered fundamental. For Socrates, it meant that far from the superficial, one could cultivate the essential : inner thought. Leisure is the time to dream, to contemplate, to imagine, to let our minds invent, guess, wander, and explore unknown worlds. We rarely get to be alone with ourselves, and we then realize that the most important dialogue takes place, the one within. He explained that if our dreams seem so extraordinary to us, it's because most of us never allow ourselves to simply think outside of the night. To engage in such quiet contemplation throughout the day, he said, all you need to do is take the time. It's incredible, then, the sheer number of ideas, images, intuitions, and thoughts—each more extraordinary than the last—that appear in our minds, thoughts we've never conceived before, and which seem to be whispered from an inner spirit. By constantly bustling about all day, we stifle this spirit, we don't allow it to express itself, and it only explodes when we're asleep and can no longer silence it. Yet, it's an incredible richness we forgo by refusing to spend time meditating, contemplating, dreaming, and thinking… All you need to do, he said, is stop by the sea, forget that you have a thousand things to do, settle down under a pine tree and contemplate its trunk against the blue of the sea, gently feel the breeze, and let your thoughts wander to the sound of the waves. This, in my opinion, is one of the fundamental secrets of Socrates' personal philosophy. Those who have seen in Socrates only a figure always ready to engage in dialogue, to argue, to criticize, to reason, to debate, miss the point of his philosophy. He spent hours concentrating on himself, dreaming, playing the lyre, doing nothing. "That is the most important activity of my day," he would say. This was not the contemplative attitude of a religious person isolating themselves from the world. It was the attitude of a philosopher who seeks his inner truth and considers it a long exploration, both alone and with others.

Antisthenes : You're right, Simmias, and Socrates even declared : "It's something that began in my childhood, a certain voice that, when it makes itself heard, dissuades me from what I was about to do, without ever pushing me to act. That's what prevents me from getting involved in politics." His conscience dictated that he denounce the ruling classes without playing the political game of democracy. Which god would Socrates have worshipped ? Would he have gone to Delphi many times since the Pythia honored him ? Not at all ! Would he have declared that he made sacrifices to one god or another ? Not at all ! He simply considered it pointless to debate such questions directly with believers. What has no rational basis doesn't need to be contradicted rationally. The gods, therefore, don't deserve to be debated, since those who believe in them base their beliefs on no rational argument.

– Aeschines : Socrates' daimon is his inner voice, the one he consults when he meditates, dreams, or speaks to himself. It is both his conscious and unconscious mind. Socrates invented a version of the unconscious that has nothing to do with a deity. He observes that when we reflect, if we find philosophical, scientific, or mathematical reasoning, it is because these reflections were already potentially present within us, without our being aware of it. He wonders how it is that our brain was already prepared for this type of reasoning. He answers that we are simply rediscovering things we already knew how to do, things that existed within us virtually. This has nothing to do with religion or even with any abstract ethical morality. It is a reflection on how the mind comes to humankind. Socrates sometimes felt his unconscious pushing him in a strange direction without his conscious knowledge of why, and he would then trust this kind of instinct. That was where this daimon resided...

As for the gods that were beginning to be institutionalized by the ruling classes, Socrates was as far removed from them as he was from all the goals of the exploiters who manipulate the people with a pseudo-democracy as they manipulate them with ceremonies and sacrifices, in order to better strike them ideologically and better chain them.

Xenophon : I don't share your views. I don't think Socrates was godless, nor that he sought at all costs to provoke the wrath of the ruling classes, but he was, in his own way, engaged in politics. He didn't approve of the decisions of the politicians of his time, which is quite different. He had particularly suffered to see men who had fought for Athens unjustly dragged into trials and condemned. He certainly rejected the choices of a leader like Pericles, who had managed to capture Athenian popularity through a policy of reckless expansionism in both war and trade. I observed with him how many democracies have been overthrown by men who preferred any other form of government, how many monarchies and oligarchies have been destroyed by popular factions, how many ambitious individuals have been stripped of the sovereign power they had just usurped, and how much we admire the good fortune and skill of those who have managed to maintain their hold on power, even for a short time. This does not make him a revolutionary, nor an enemy of the gods or the social system. It is his enemies who accuse him of this, and I was unaware that his friends could spread such rumors.

Thus, Aristophanes, in his play "The Clouds," attributed to him the following false statement : "By what gods do you swear ? First of all, gods are not common currency among us." But this wasn't reported exactly. For me, not only was he not godless, but he was possessed by spirits. He often said that he listened to words in his head and that a voice told him what to do. He was oriented differently from the Athenians and seemed to place his faith in a single god, but he didn't readily express it, considering debates on such opinions pointless. As for his choice not to truly defend himself at his trial, it seems to me dictated by the fear of growing old and suffering from a thousand ailments due to advanced age.

Antisthenes : By the dog ! It's as if we didn't know the same Socrates ! You portray him as a very wise figure when he constantly challenged the powerful and the self-righteous, including his friends, every single day. So much so that I think, a year after his death, you miss him so much that your critical thinking has already become quite dulled. You'd think, for example, that Socrates was the representative of the Greek gods against the Athenian gods. Complete misinterpretation, my friends, because Socrates told anyone who would listen that the only god is to be found in all of humanity and the only morality in the happiness of all people. As for beliefs in malevolent and benevolent beings, magical protections and other demonic lies, he distances himself from them, stating that those who consider themselves capable of playing such a role are a little too self-assured : "Superstition follows pride, and obeys it as its father."

As for each individual, they must seek their god within their own conscience, their "daimon," as Socrates called it. It is up to each individual to listen to it when it tells them what to do with their life. But he did not claim to have solved social problems through moral rules, which could only be resolved through the struggle between oppressors and oppressed. In fact, treating members of the ruling classes as individuals in his public debates with members of the ruling classes was simply a critical technique used by Socrates to show the public that the motives of those in power did not correspond to human criteria ! Socrates is a visceral enemy of all forms of power, including so-called democracy, an enemy of all orders, including the moral or religious order. He does not establish virtue as a new order, but addresses people as needing to find within themselves, and not in an external law, the source of their own conduct and personal thought. To portray him as the master of a mere school of philosophy or the leader of a revolutionary circle is equally wrong ! That's how I understand his "I am no one's master" ... He also said : "If you want to follow me, don't worry about where Socrates is, just seek the truth..." As for his communism, in my opinion, it boils down to the ability of every person to live with few possessions and not constantly strive for more. Consequently, we avoid glaring inequalities, the perpetual pursuit of luxury, surplus, and competition, and the excesses of exploitation and wars of conquest. That's my Socrates. He was the one who wasn't afraid to appear in public as a person of few possessions and who refused to become rich. Socrates refused the money that many citizens offered him, including very wealthy men like Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Cranon, and Eurylochus of Larissa. Goodness is internal, said Socrates, and he practiced his own philosophy to the point of making the richest citizens ridiculous in the eyes of the majority, without fear of the consequences...

Aeschines : Antisthenes, you exhort the ruling classes to renounce their money, to live as beggars, to wallow in the mud, and thus claim to either convince them or ridicule them. Instead of living in the comfort of perfumed baths, you offer them mud baths and, as a place to relax, a floor soiled by dogs ! What good do you expect this to do for society as a whole, except for a few young people who amuse themselves by following you to laugh at your antics ? Your model of humanity is Heracles, the one detached from everything, and you attribute this attitude to Socrates. But in doing so, you misunderstand him : Socrates certainly refused power, honors, wealth, and pomp, but he was not disengaged or detached from the common people. He did not despise them for wanting to live cleanly and properly. You declare that a cloak is enough to live on, and a meager meal as well, and that this is the means of not depending on society. Socrates was proud of his old cloak and his poor, independent life. But he derived no superiority or glory from it. That would have implied that all those who do not live as beggars are at the mercy of the ruling classes, and that was not at all his point of view. As for poverty, whether chosen or not, it is not necessarily synonymous with virtue and wisdom. It can also signify selfishness, passivity, and misanthropy. Glorifying the way of life of animals is not enough to convince us that we are simply animals. As for you, Aristippus, for you pleasure is the supreme good, the ultimate goal of human life, and this supreme good is a gentle movement accompanied by sensation. Pleasure is a gentle movement, while pain is a harsh one. The goal of life is the pleasures of the senses, those of the soul being secondary. But can you claim that Socrates advocated this type of objective, he who asserted that happiness is internal much more than based on the satisfaction of pleasures and sensations ?

Lysias : Antisthenes, your interpretation of Socrates is certainly as insolent as his character, but you may be making a misinterpretation. Insolence was not an end in itself for Socrates, and even provoking the ruling classes was by no means enough for him. You are right, in my opinion, when you say that Socrates was godless. Socrates asserted that only virtue can lead to happiness. Far from making it a religious morality, he relied on debate among people to establish virtue within the community. In short, Socrates believed that salvation could be found not through the gods, but through reason alone. His "daimon" was nothing other than personal conscience. He did not waver in affirming this opinion, even under the worst threats. Never, at his trial, even when his life depended on it, did Socrates directly affirm his belief in the city's deities : Athena, Zeus, Apollo, and so on. Yet, this was the main ideological accusation against him. The domination of the Olympian gods appeared fundamental in Athens, and not only for ideological reasons, but primarily for political ones. To dominate the gods of Greece was already to dominate Greece itself. However, where I disagree with you is that you don't attribute any political purpose to Socrates' activities, because you were probably unaware of the secret plans of his revolutionary circle. But Socrates was a political figure in Athens throughout his life. He couldn't imagine taking to the roads to seek refuge in another city, because that would have meant placing himself under the protection of another Greek city with the same social constraints, thus forcing him to compromise his principles to adapt to the power of some oligarch or tyrant, or even to politicians as demagogic as those in Athens. It was in this sense that he preferred death to exile, to preserve his political legacy and pass it on intact to future generations. But I do mean political legacy, which in no way diminishes his philosophy, his art, or his conception of humankind and its role on Earth... As for his trial, Socrates could very well have won, as I won mine against my brother Eratosthenes' murderer, but he would have thus lost the battle of ideas he was waging against Athens. By spilling his blood upon his enemies, he began to provoke a reaction against them among the Athenian people, which certainly did not reverse the ruling classes or the course of events, but it left an indelible mark on history. Greece will forever remain associated with the philosophy of Socrates.

– Ichtyas : I completely agree with you on this point, Lysias. Everything about Socrates is political, whether it be his philosophy, his morals, his goals, or his perspectives, and I would like to remind you of his words to Glaucon :"Let us first consider the State. (...) What constitution is meant by oligarchy ? It is the form of government founded on property qualifications, where the rich rule and the poor have no share in authority. (...) This hoarding of gold, where everyone piles up, is what destroys this kind of government. First, they discover reasons for spending, and to satisfy them, they bend the laws and no longer obey them, neither they nor their wives. (...) Necessarily, such a State is not one, but two : that of the poor and that of the rich, who inhabit the same land and constantly conspire against one another. (...) It is certain that, if no obstacle is placed in their way, some will be excessively rich and others destitute. (...) It is evident that wherever you see beggars in a State, the same place harbors thieves, pickpockets, sacrilegious people, and evildoers." of every kind. (...) Now, just as a small, weak body needs only a slight external shock to fall ill, and sometimes even disturbances erupt without any external cause, so too a state, in a similar situation, becomes prey to disease and internal warfare at the slightest opportunity. (...) Is it not the same in a democracy founded on money ? Was it not excessive wealth that served to establish the oligarchy ? (...) Well, it is the same pursuit of money, the same insatiable desire, that causes the downfall of the democracy founded on the same insatiable desire for the accumulation of goods. (...) The same disease that, born in the oligarchy, caused its ruin, also arises in democracy, develops there with greater force and virulence, and reduces the democratic state to slavery. (...) Let us mentally divide the democratic state into the three classes of which it is composed. The first is the same a breed that has developed at the head of the oligarchy. (...) Then there is another class that always distinguishes itself from the multitude. This is the class that seeks money. (...) The third class is the people, that is to say, all manual laborers and private individuals uninvolved in public affairs who have only a small amount of wealth. In a democracy, this would be the most numerous and therefore the most powerful class if it were assembled. But it is hardly inclined to assemble. (...) The people are accustomed to choosing a favorite whom they place at their head and whose power they nurture and increase. (...) And the protector of the people begins to transform into a tyrant. (...) This is the moment for all the ambitious who have reached this point to resort to the famous request of the tyrant, to ask the people for bodyguards, so that the "defender of the people" may remain to serve them. And the people give them to him ; for all their fears are for the defender of the people. He does nothing in his own defense : he is too self-assured. (...) In the early days,He greets everyone he meets with nothing but smiles and greetings, denies being a tyrant, makes numerous promises both privately and publicly, forgives debts and distributes land to the people and his favorites, and feigns benevolence and gentleness toward everyone. (...) But, once he has dealt with his external enemies, (...) he constantly instigates wars so that the people will need a leader. He also arranges for the citizens to be impoverished by taxes, thus forcing them to focus on their daily needs and less likely to conspire against him. And if he suspects that some of them are too independent-minded to submit to his rule, war provides him with a pretext to destroy them by handing them over to the enemy. For all these reasons, a tyrant is always compelled to foment wars. (...) Thus, in reality, whatever some people may think, the true tyrant is a true slave, of extreme baseness and servility, reduced as he is to flattering the most wicked men, powerless to satisfy his own desires in the slightest (...) He spends his life in continual fear, prey to convulsive pains. (...) But besides these evils, he is a victim of those that power develops even further, namely envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, will the wise man refuse to take part in public affairs if he has such ideas ? By Jove ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe that there is one like it anywhere in the world.' (...) It matters not whether this State has been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized, it is on this one and this one alone that it will base itself and whose laws it will follow."He spends his life in constant fear, prey to convulsive pains. (...) But besides these ills, he is a victim of those that power develops even further, namely envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, will the wise man refuse to take part in public affairs if he has such ideas ? No, by the Dog ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe there is one like it anywhere in the world. (...) It matters little whether this state has been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized ; it is on this one and this one alone that he will focus his attention and whose laws he will follow.'He spends his life in constant fear, prey to convulsive pains. (...) But besides these ills, he is a victim of those that power develops even further, namely envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, will the wise man refuse to take part in public affairs if he has such ideas ? No, by the Dog ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe there is one like it anywhere in the world. (...) It matters little whether this state has been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized ; it is on this one and this one alone that he will focus his attention and whose laws he will follow.'

It seems to me that, after such statements, we can hardly claim that Socrates was condemned by Athens simply for engaging in philosophy in a somewhat unconventional manner. No, it was indeed Socrates' revolutionary politics, inseparable from his revolutionary philosophy, that was condemned.

Socrates never supported any kind of state. Liars have spread the rumor that he favored the Cretan and Spartan states, their methods, or their goals. This is absolutely false. For Socrates, the state was created not to liberate the people and enable them to accomplish their tasks collectively, but, on the contrary, to oppress them in the name of a supposed common interest of the rich and the poor. The state represented the primary means of stripping the people of all power and a tool for suppressing social revolutions.

– Plato : No, by Zeus ! The State is not, by nature, hostile to civil society. If it becomes so, it is through the accumulation of errors, vices, unfavorable circumstances, and above all, through the incompetence, ignorance, and greed of those who govern it. What should the State be ? It should correspond to the goals for which it was established. What are they ? To ensure the security and well-being (housing, clothing, and food) of all its inhabitants. Doesn't the State arise from the fact that the individual cannot be self-sufficient in ensuring their subsistence and security ? The State must ensure the stability of relations between social classes. It is not responsible for abolishing these classes, but for ensuring their harmony. This harmony stems from the fact that everyone sees their property protected and their future secured, according to the place reserved for them in society. All people must feel protected within it, regardless of their class, rank, or profession. Like an individual, a state only develops harmoniously if it moderates its passions, limits them, frames them, establishes rules of conduct, and respects them. The democratic state believed it had found a remedy for the ills afflicting societies by constantly changing its medicine. One had no effect on the ailment, so another was tried, then ten or a hundred more. The remedy is changed almost daily. This does not mean that the cause of the illness has been treated, an illness on which no thought has been given even a moment. Let us remember those mutinous sailors who wanted to take turns at the helm, but none of whom wanted to reflect on the art of steering a ship…

The role of the State is to ensure that even the poor are happy to live in this city, and this must be achieved by establishing, outside of society, a special class of men who are the guardians of order and security. These guardians must be specifically recruited and trained. One of the objectives of this training and the organizational structure of the guardians must be to ensure that they do not seek to use their force for anything other than the public good, nor to profit from their weapons to enrich themselves, nor to dominate citizens, nor to repress them unjustly. The Republic is the foundation of our society ; let us not undermine it with our criticisms. Let us instead try to propose a fairer functioning of the State and even define what the ideal functioning would be, remembering that what is decisive is the general criterion and not just the vagaries of history. Without the State, we must recognize that the two classes, rich and poor, can only tear each other apart without any benefit to either side, with the sole result being the general weakening or the implosion of society. Justice is not the abolition of classes, but their mutual satisfaction on freely agreed terms. For this to happen, the State must be the same for all. The guardians must be properly organized to avoid all the abuses we have witnessed. These warriors will be sober and courageous. Once they have a house, land, money, and a wife, the guardians will become wise and will not be a nuisance to the city. And above all, the future of this State will depend on the fact that, among the guardians, statesmen are selected, trained, and organized for this very specific purpose, which requires personal qualities and skills that cannot be expected of the average citizen. The governance of society must be scientific. It must be the work of citizens who have mastered the dialectic of science and are committed to the common good. They must not be driven by a thirst for power or money, but by a passion for politics, for governing the city, just as scientists are driven by the rational study of the world. They must consider their role an art. Some of you seem to think that Socrates wanted the destruction of armies and the state, that he was against all forms of government. The lesson we must, in my opinion, draw from these experiences is the necessity of choosing the men and women who will lead the city from among the most philosophical minds. For philosophy is the knowledge of all knowledge, the science of all sciences.

Antisthenes : If you believe you, Socrates defended the government ! By Jove ! I can swear the opposite is true ! Didn't Socrates say to Aristippus : "I consider him truly insane who, not content with providing with great difficulty for his own needs, wants to personally place himself at the head of the state, only to find himself one day brought to trial as guilty if he doesn't satisfy all the whims of the people—isn't that the height of madness ?" I hear talk here of order, authority, respect for power, social stability. Socrates didn't speak like that. He constantly cultivated in young people the sharp criticism of the regime, even when the young people he was teaching belonged to the ruling class themselves !

Xenophon : Young people owe respect to their parents. Certainly, if Socrates had said anything suggesting that one should reject all parental authority, no longer follow their advice, no longer love them, he would have been wrong. The family is a pillar of social order and must remain so. I too dreamed of the ideal city and even entertained the idea that, with the Thousand, we could build such a city in Asia. We wondered then how we would construct such an ideal world. Reality overtook us, and our dream remained just that. Authority is not a principle to be denigrated when one wants to build a just order. If everyone does only what comes to mind, how can you expect a society to function ? Of course, I have more experience with the military, since I participated in it from my childhood. In that domain, everyone recognizes the necessity of obeying authority. However, this certainly doesn't resolve the question : on what can this authority be based ? Parental authority must rest on their benevolence towards their children, on their ability to defend what is right, when these children are not yet old enough to distinguish between good and evil. People are not always capable of making this distinction. The role of enlightened leaders is to patiently show them the way. It is necessary to earn their trust and not use it to deceive them. This is not so different from the case of an army commander. He must constantly address his soldiers, cultivate their trust by explaining what will happen and why they are fighting. It is not enough to devise a strategy ; one must command men. And one must have the capacity to sometimes transcend the prevailing spirit of the times. For example, in a society that places foreigners below it, one must be able to bluntly offer them the opportunity to participate at the highest level in the armed forces. Let us not forget that this is how Sparta recovered. The Spartan cavalry only began to distinguish itself from the day it agreed to integrate the metics en masse ! The authority of a leader also lies in this ability to go against public opinion, leading it in a direction it did not intend to go. This is the opposite of the methods of demagogues, the effects of which we have so suffered in recent years in Athens, and which Socrates condemned. Let us not forget that Socrates was a hoplite. He was a soldier longer than any other profession. And, in the army, he first learned to obey rather than to command. He said that freedom is obedience to laws, those of nature as well as those of society or of man. And nature, like society, seemed to him harder to obey than the worst army commander !

Eubulides : Plato, you speak of the government of philosophers as a central idea of Socrates, but you surely remember that Socrates said, "Philosophers have neither eyes nor ears for laws and decrees, whether proclaimed or written. Whether some good or bad befalls the state, the philosopher knows no more about it than he knows the number of drops of water in the sea." If Socrates believed that a state led by virtuous and philosophical individuals was the key to the future, why would he have refused to participate in it and discouraged all his friends from applying for its leadership ? Many of us, including Alcibiades, Charmides, Hermogenes, and Xenophon, asked him this question, and his answer was always the same : Do you think the social system depends on one person or two ?

– Plato : I think that's a misinterpretation. Socrates himself served honorably in the army and participated in a government. I, too, participated in a government for a few months. Of course, both of these experiences demonstrated the limitations of exercising power in a state that falls far short of the ideal I described. Others among us have also had such experiences of participation in power, even at the highest levels of government. This doesn't mean they could change the state and society as they pleased. Entering political action blindly, without developing a philosophy, without clear objectives, without studying the political function of government, is a source of serious disillusionment, which can then lead to exaggerated criticism of any state and any form of government. Socrates didn't condemn Alcibiades for participating in power, but because he had the pride to believe that Alcibiades was manipulating the ruling classes, when in fact it was the other way around. The lesson we must, in my opinion, draw from these experiences is the need to put an end to the demagoguery that claims the people know who is most competent, and to choose the men and women who will lead the city from among the most philosophical minds. For philosophy is the knowledge of all knowledge, the science of all sciences.

– Phaedo : Plato, your morality of ethical virtue may be very valid, but it is far removed from the philosophy I heard Socrates defend. Socrates sought the economic, political, social, and human conditions of a society aiming for the happiness of all. He did not expect this from a morality imposed from above by any power whatsoever. He sought the revolutionary form of government of the people, not the stability of a state above the people.

– Theaetetus : I would tend to agree with Plato. Politician, certainly, Socrates was, but not in the sense of demagogues who seek only popularity, nor in the sense of politicians from the ruling classes who don't have the people's best interests at heart. Certainly, he didn't believe he could act in the people's best interests' stead. But that's not all : from those who were to govern, Socrates expected not only the will to do good, nor virtue, but also professional competence. The mason has a profession and a skill. So do the actor, the musician, and the political leader. Didn't he say that the trireme needs a captain who is also a navigator, that the army needs a strategist, that the chorus needs a leader, just like the government ? Especially the revolutionary who must conceive of something new. Politics is a science, he said, and science is not self-evident. "Science and philosophy are inseparable. A science that is not founded on philosophy is worthless." , he said, and therefore, it is not enough to observe in order to understand, one must philosophize.

Let us remember that his last words, before his death, recalled his fundamental philosophy :
“Now, do not limit your inquiry to men, if you wish to discover the truth more easily ; extend it to all animals and plants, in short, to everything that has birth, and let us see, in considering all this, whether it is true that nothing can be born except from its opposite, when it has an opposite. Let us therefore examine whether it is a necessity that everything that has an opposite is born from nothing other than its opposite.” Socrates always told us :

"How do you discover truths ? In your observations, notice contradictions. Rub them together like two pieces of wood to obtain light. Knowledge springs from contradictions."

"Being and non-being are present everywhere, at all levels. Becoming and movement are always simultaneously being and non-being."

The establishment of democracy by the ruling classes was, in his view, the most striking example of contradiction. At the very moment when the ruling classes were ostensibly granting democracy to the people, they were at the very moment when they most feared the people seizing power. This is what I wanted to emphasize, because it seems to me that what Socrates criticized in this false democracy was its pretense of giving the people a voice, without seeking how they could knowingly decide what their true interests were—that is, on the basis of what ideas they could emancipate themselves.

– Echecrates : The accusation included, among other things, the charge of "recklessly working to scrutinize things that are under the earth as well as those that are in the heavens." It is unnecessary to constantly claim that Socrates did nothing, to pretend that he did not fight against religion, that he did not seek to understand the world, nor to transform it. Especially since this is not true. Yes, Socrates sought to understand the world. Yes, he wanted to transform it. Yes, Athens did not condemn him unjustly. It condemned him through a reactionary development, rejecting all progress of ideas. We have already explained at length the circumstances under which Athens experienced this reactionary phase. Let us not try to suggest that it was a case of astonishing blindness. Socrates sought to found a revolutionary group that remained hidden from the Athenian authorities. Of course, it seems necessary to me that there exist a clandestine group of men determined to fight for the freedom of all. Pythagoras, like Zeno or Socrates, based his work on the formation of a group of men organized separately and specially trained. And the goal of this work, his philosophy, is the aspiration of humankind, the search for harmony.

Aristippus : The goal of humankind, as Socrates always emphasized, is happiness and virtue. Fighting for a future society, as I hear it expressed here, never seemed to me to be his aim. Socrates' death, in this sense, is not the opposite of his life : a refusal to go against the meaning of his existence, whatever the final cost, even if it is death. As you say, Theaetetus, Socrates considered existence itself contradictory, that death is in life and life in death. For something new to be born in Athens, it may have seemed necessary to him to die. It is not a sacrifice, but a new birth. It is a dialectical movement, in which internal contradiction is the very principle of transformation.

– Plato : Socrates' dialectic has always been, first and foremost, a means of allowing people to delve into the depths of their own thoughts and discover their innermost philosophy. Contradiction is the role of the one who questions, who probes, or who allows the subject to go as far as possible into thoughts buried within them, thoughts they have always refused to examine. Presenting Socrates' thought as a closed thesis seems wrong to me. The contradictions Socrates speaks of are those of someone being questioned, seeking to escape a web of questions that allows them to arrive at their own truth. As for the social and political system for the city, it is true that Socrates defended one, but I believe it has been caricatured here, and that it is rather the thesis of his opponents that has been presented to us, and it served primarily to discredit him. It was a mendacious version aimed at ridiculing him in order to better destroy him in the eyes of the general public. He reportedly wanted, for example, a community of women, or the abolition of Athens' role. He simply refused to allow women to be disregarded and emphasized that all his mentors and teachers had been women. He criticized the fortification of Athens and the construction of its arsenal as tools of Pericles' warlike and conquering policies, but this did not extend to waging war against the political or social role of the city. For my part, I have never seen in Socrates' discourse an abstract and general rejection of slavery. For him, community did not mean the sharing of great wealth, but rather a city governed in service to all. Even though I might be accused of looking out for my own interests as the son of a prominent family, I don't believe that Socrates' philosophical goal was communism... I sensed that some of Socrates' disciples here would be quick to denounce my interpretation of Socrates' ideas, claiming that Plato is no longer the same and no longer follows our master Socrates. I assure them : I will continue to disseminate Socrates' ideas as I have understood them.

– Phaedo : Treason, indeed. How else can one understand that, during his lifetime, against his wishes, you disseminated in his name theses that he denounced as false ? How else can one understand your absence at the trial and, again, your absence during the final moments of our master awaiting death in his prison, Plato, you who were his best student, certainly the most brilliant ? How can one understand your acting as if Socrates were a gentle, self-serving orator ? Who can believe that you didn't know Socrates had a communist and revolutionary project ? How can one understand your acting as if you had never participated in his clandestine revolutionary circle ? I remind you that after hearing a reading of Plato's "Lysis," Socrates exclaimed : "How this young man puts words in my mouth !"

– Plato : Before spreading a false rumor, remember what Socrates said when someone came to him one day and said :

– Listen Socrates, I have to tell you how your friend behaved.

"Stop !" interrupted the wise man. "Have you passed what you have to tell me through the three sieves ?"

"Three sieves ?" said the other, filled with astonishment.

– Yes, my good friend : three sieves. Let's examine whether what you have to tell me can pass through the three sieves. The first is the sieve of truth. Have you checked if everything you want to tell me is true ?

– No, I heard him tell the story and...

– Good, good. But surely, you've put it through the second sieve. That's the sieve of goodness. Is what you want to tell me, if it's not entirely true, at least something good ?

Hesitantly, the other replied :

– No, it's not a good thing, quite the opposite...

"Hmm," said the philosopher, "let's try using the third sieve, and see if it's useful to tell me what you want to tell me..."

Useful ? Not exactly...

"Well !" said Socrates, smiling, "if what you have to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor useful, I prefer not to know it, and as for you, I advise you to forget it..."

Such were Socrates' words on the claims spread against this person or that. Furthermore, I am certainly not a defender of the Athenian ruling classes, whose choices, dictated by the interests of a minority instead of the greater good, I have consistently condemned, like Socrates. As for the method of defense Socrates has chosen, which surprises you so much, it is, in my opinion, a continuation of Socrates' method, which he will not abandon simply because his life is at stake. He argues at the trial as he would have argued in the street or in a shop. You cannot change Socrates, not even by threatening him with death ; that is what he wants to tell us.

The proof was provided. In my youth, I felt the same as many others in that situation ; I imagined that as soon as I became master of myself, I would go straight to attending to the common affairs of the city. And that is how chance led me to find myself involved in the affairs of the city. The regime of that time being subjected to the violent criticism of the majority, a revolution occurred... (six asses before the condemnation of Socrates)... and fifty-one men took the lead in the revolution, eleven in the city, ten in the Pyreus—each of these two groups being in charge of the agora and everything concerning the city—while thirty of them had seized full powers. Among these, it so happened that some were relatives and acquaintances of mine... and so they immediately summoned me to their side, as if for matters that suited me. And for my part, I felt no surprise at all because of my youth ; I imagined, in fact, that they would then administer the city in such a way as to lead it from a somewhat unjust way of life to a just one, so I paid all my attention to how they would act. And look, I see these men making the previous regime resemble a golden age in a short time ! And among others, my friend, Socrates, who was older than me and whom I would not be ashamed to say was the most just of those of that time, they sent with some others to find one of our fellow citizens, to bring him by force with a view to putting him to death, so that he would thus take part in their activities, whether he wanted to or not ; But he did not obey, taking the risk of suffering everything rather than becoming complicit in their sacrilegious works... Whatever my social origins and the choices of my family, my choices have been clear and do not fear slander.

Menexenus : I, too, come from a relatively well-to-do family. I have little experience, as I am still too young to judge such profound questions. It seems to me, however, that one cannot simply dismiss Plato's theses on the pretext that he was born into a wealthy family. Plato, who might be mistaken for the son of a rich and powerful family, never wanted this lineage. To assert this break, he, who should have been named Aristocles like his grandfather, called himself Plato. He did not participate in political power when his family did, nor in the political party they favored. He even denounced them. He did not choose his family's side, that of the rich, but denounced the excesses of oligarchy, where the rich dominate the poor, as well as those of democracy, where the poor believe they dominate the rich because they elect politicians.

– Metrodorus : I don't actually believe that Plato's substantial intellectual heritage was enough to determine the ideas he would defend in the future. This doesn't mean he was right in his interpretation of Socrates' theses. I would rather support Theaetetus's point of view : Socrates didn't just say that one must know oneself, but he set as humankind's objective the knowledge of the world. He had begun by studying the physical sciences and taught, rather than the way of life, given our fellow citizens' lack of interest in the sciences. He studied everything that could be studied, from the lyre to the art of war ! But the arts, the sciences, knowledge, are not enough to decide, in place of humankind, what is good. One can be a great strategist, perfectly skilled in commanding troops or a group of triremes, without being able to rise to the level necessary to direct the military policy of the city, which means, for example, being able to transcend the fratricidal struggles between Sparta and Athens. Socrates fought against these pointless and bloody wars throughout his life, and that is what he ultimately paid for...

– Xenophon : I think that Socrates never supported Athenian attempts to dominate the free Greek cities, but, unlike Alcibiades, he never chose to side with Sparta, having no illusions about the Spartan regime while not idealizing the so-called Athenian democracy.

Alcibiades : I may be criticized for leaving Athens while in command of the armies, but everyone knows that it was Athens that abandoned me, threatening to condemn me on false pretenses. I am not the first general, far from it, to have suffered this sad fate. It is almost the general case. Another example illustrates the difficulty of being a general in Athens. It is that of the Athenian historian Thucydides, who died three years ago in obscure circumstances, probably assassinated, before finishing his "History of the Peloponnesian War." Twenty-five years ago, he had been elected general and commanded a squadron of seven ships, but, having failed to prevent Sparta from capturing Aphipolis, he was accused of treason, which forced him into exile from Athens for twenty years. During his exile, Thucydides traveled throughout Greece and gathered numerous accounts from combatants on both sides (Spartans and Athenians), but he was an embarrassment to the extremists in the war between Athens and Sparta. He was eventually eliminated. Athens distrusted Athenian strategists, whether victorious or defeated. They could use their renown to gain popular support. Ten years earlier, the Greek admiral Conon had entered the service of the Persians after going into exile with several of his men. He had deemed it unwise to return to Athens after the disaster at Aegospotami. We also remember the death sentences handed down to the admirals, despite their victory, after the naval Battle of Arginusae. This is what the Athenian custom of attributing any military defeat to treason led to.

Athens armed itself to dominate the Greek cities, but today it is Sparta that fights against the common enemy, the dangerous Persian neighbor ! It was Cleisthenes, not Pericles, who established the democratic regime in Athens, taking advantage of his participation in the Persian Wars to build a true commercial, political, and military empire. But at the time, the Delian League, which unified the struggle of the city-states, was not under Athenian control. For example, the funds collected in the various cities were not centralized in Athens, but in Delos. The war chest, which was to amount to 3,000 talents, far from serving only the military defense of the cities, was to be centralized by Athens and used to pay the city's officials, finance the major construction projects on the Acropolis, and appease the poor citizens by distributing crumbs here and there, entertaining the common people with theater, choruses, actors, baths, gymnasiums, and popular assemblies—all paid for by the war chest. Increasingly, discontent rose in the Greek cities, which did not understand why they should agree to pay in order to be treated as subjects under the pretext of unifying Greece. The glorious past had not taught us this. Even before Troy, where armies from all the cities were gathered, they did not obey a single, dominant authority. Nor at Salamis and Marathon. The greatest victories had not resulted from unification under the aegis of the most powerful. None of these wars had required the alienation of the freedom and independence of the Greek city-states. The citizens of the cities allied with Athens questioned why they had to pay tribute to Athens, why they had to submit to the justice of Athenian magistrates, and why their money should be used to build Athens instead of for the common defense. The cities that resisted this domination were ruthlessly crushed. Athens thus acquired an importance disproportionate to its size, its true political, military, and economic significance. Is so much money and so many monuments necessary for such a small area ? Argolis is eight to ten miles long and four to five miles wide ; Laconia roughly the same ; Achaea is a narrow strip of land on the side of a mountain range that slopes down to the sea. Is this the size of the capital of a world empire ? It's no wonder that revolt eventually simmered among the members of the Delian League, which had become nothing more than a smokescreen for Athenian ambitions for domination. It's no wonder that force was necessary, with increasingly violent repressions culminating in the systematic massacre of entire inhabitants, for Athens to regain its position of power among the city-states !Was Athens the only city capable of fighting in defense of the Greek city-states ? Let us not forget the inscription at Thermopylae : "Passerby, go tell the Lacedaemonians that if we rest here, it is because we obeyed their laws !" This meant that, although the Greek armies had defeated the Great King, the Persian Xerxes, and were led by the Athenian Leonidas, these armies were primarily composed of 4,000 Spartan warriors, who secured victory against three thousand Persian soldiers ! The same was true at Salamis. Themistocles the Athenian was the chief strategist, but the bulk of the soldiers were Spartan. Athens' true superiority was neither strategic, nor economic, nor political, nor artistic, nor cultural, nor intellectual. It was on its maritime superiority that Athens based its claim to domination over the city-states. Three hundred Athenian triremes held sway over the ships of Sparta, Corinth, and even larger fleets like that of the Persians. It was upon its fleet that Athens sought to build its maritime empire. Hence the long-established strategy of taking refuge on its ships in the event of an attack. Hence the construction of a fortified port. Hence also the construction of major shipyards for building war triremes. This brought Athens years of glory, wealth, and prosperity, but the rot had set in : Athens was not the soul of Greece and was not capable of claiming to be. Socrates died for daring to say this loud and clear to the Athenian people, who often didn't want to hear it…Athens was not the soul of Greece and was not capable of claiming to be. Socrates died for daring to say so loud and clear to the Athenian people, who often didn't want to hear it…Athens was not the soul of Greece and was not capable of claiming to be. Socrates died for daring to say so loud and clear to the Athenian people, who often didn't want to hear it…

– Charmides : Sparta won its war against Athens primarily by allying with Persia. And I think that if it won, it wasn't because of having more competent strategists or braver soldiers. That's the difference between the two societies, Athenian and Lacedaemonian. Indeed, Athens has long since ceased to be a society of soldier-farmers, whereas Sparta has remained so. As a result, in Sparta, fighting is a duty. In Athens, deciding, discussing, and giving one's opinion are genuine needs of the citizen. Military obedience certainly suffers as a result. People prefer to elect strategists rather than obey a general. That's what ruined Athens. Alcibiades, you should know this, since that's how you gained your position as commander of the armies, and that's also how you lost it.

– Lysanias To the misfortunes of Greece's internal and external wars was added the plague that struck the entire region thirty years ago, eliminating a large portion of the population, causing panic, and sowing new and disturbing behaviors among the living. The epidemic broke out suddenly in Athens, claiming its first victims in Piraeus. At the time, the false legend circulated that Sparta had poisoned the wells of Athens ! The city's inhabitants were then severely affected. The disease manifested with acute symptoms followed by vomiting, and death occurred within 7 to 9 days. Social life itself was utterly disrupted by the epidemic. Life no longer held the same value. Ethics were altered. People sought quick and easy profits and pleasures. Rich and poor were exchanged at great speed. No one was held back from their sometimes criminal endeavors by fear of the gods and the law. The epidemic lasted four years. It left nothing in place, least of all mentalities. The plague seemed a prophetic warning against Athens. Disorder reigned in the city. Settling of scores multiplied. Everywhere there were purgers, everywhere informers and alleged spies, everywhere henchmen. Accusations of threatening order were hurled far and wide, and the accused were quickly eliminated. What the internal wars of the city-states had begun—the normalization of death—the disorder caused by the epidemic completed. Violent force was now the only thing that mattered. The new leader of Athens, Cleon, who came to power after Pericles' death from the plague, was characterized by his implacable style : a single punishment for his enemies and all those who stood in his way—summary execution. Let us remember the inhabitants of Mytilene, in revolt, who were put to the sword to the last man. Cleon proclaimed to anyone who would listen that the only good enemy is a dead enemy ! It was then that Athens doubled the tribute demanded from the allied Greek cities. Athens then believed its fleet invincible. This was Alcibiades' moment of glory, but it would last only a moment and would be close to his downfall. Everyone wanted to forget Alcibiades' escapades as long as he offered Athens victories… in words. The formidable squadron had captivated all the young people, ready to embark on this new war to conquer success, honor, and fortune. So much so that Athens, with the squadron barely ready to depart, believed it possible to get rid of Alcibiades with a serious accusation. It was a cabal of the kind whose secrets Athenian politics held. But these maneuvers, crucial for the struggle for power in Athens, could not deceive a true enemy. And the heroic Athenian fleet was defeated at Syracuse ! Defeated, Athens began to doubt everything and everyone. It was necessary to vent the people's anger on false scapegoats : the soothsayers and astrologers.Those who had advised the expedition and predicted victory were the first to lose their lives. But, with Athens defeated, Sparta allied itself with Persia under the leadership of Alcibiades, the same man who tells us here that Sparta was the only one to dare confront the Persians ! Is it any wonder, then, that the Athenian people, deceived, turned against Alcibiades' friends, beginning with his teacher, Socrates ? Of course, I agree with all those who are scandalized by the accusation that Socrates is being held accountable for the actions of others, even if they were his former students. Do we accuse parents for the actions of their children, once they have grown up ? Athens thus chose a pretext to eliminate Socrates, an inconvenient accuser, thereby showing all those who might have wanted to play the accuser that one can very quickly become the accused !

Xenophon : Athens is not solely responsible for its decline and fall. Lately, many civilizations around the world have experienced meteoric and brief periods of growth. They live only a very short time, having burned through their energy at breakneck speed, whereas the ancient cities grew in wealth and glory very slowly, but endured for a long time. Persia, too, is experiencing such a tragedy and is heading towards the same end. Our empires are like shooting stars that suddenly emit a dazzling light and then fade into darkness. The empires that have fallen one after another, such as the Hittites, the Cretans, or Persia, are striking examples of this. Brilliance has given way to darkness… The power of Carthage, which today dominates the Mediterranean, will fall like the others.

– Alcibiades : It seems to me that the differences between Sparta and Athens stemmed primarily from their distinct social histories. While Sparta was founded on "equals" and the clerus, which guaranteed the free use of a plot of land, Athens was founded on profound inequalities between rich, middle, and poor citizens. The more successful the city became, the richer the rich became, and the poor depended on the wages and allowances paid by the city. The Spartan military city was founded on these warrior-equals. It was Solon who enabled Athens to escape the risks of revolution without fundamentally attacking the interests of the ruling classes. He gave the people the opportunity to choose between different candidates for the city's magistrates, but he wisely ensured that all magistracy positions were reserved for the notables and the wealthy : the pentacosiomedimmi, the zeugites, and the equestrians, with laborers having no say in the matter. But in Sparta, as in Athens, there were not only citizens. The Spartan helot revolt, more than sixty years earlier, played a fundamental role. Let us not forget that Athens benefited from Sparta's weakened state. By offering its assistance in suppressing the revolt, Athens was able to exert its influence over the Lacedaemonian city. And the Athenian city benefited, during this period, from not experiencing a slave revolt. But Athens, which thus experienced its hours of wealth and glory, was ruined by wars and called its political system into question. The wealthy regained power and abolished democracy. From this arose a series of misfortunes and internal conflicts within Athens. External weakness has always stemmed from internal weakness. Sparta was able to exploit this weakening, as well as that of the Persians. But Sparta, the victor, did not subject the Greek city-states to its domination. When the Spartans captured Naupactus (belonging to Athens), they granted it its freedom. It's important to remember that Sparta, having defeated Athens, did not raze the vanquished city, as Thebes and Corinth had demanded. They merely destroyed the fortifications and seized the fleet. But the defeat was a bitter pill to swallow for the Athenians, and they developed a deep-seated hatred that required finding scapegoats. Ostracism became a common tactic in Athens against anyone who didn't openly display their hatred for the Lacedaemonian city. Hence the wave of espionage and the search for traitors, the backlash against the Sophists and all those who could be accused of defeatism. Socrates was one of its victims.

– Thrasymachus The capture of Athens by Lysander six years ago, a defeat from which the city is still struggling to recover, was not a bolt from the blue. As the historian Thucydides rightly observed, there is a reason in history, and if men and societies fall victim to the consequences of their choices, it is not by chance. The Athenians deluded themselves for far too long. At the beginning of the struggle against Persia, the adversary was so formidable, the threat so grave, the foreseeable consequences so deadly, that the Greek city-states united, contributing, without much hesitation, their contingent of men and ships against the Great King Cyrus. Having agreed to place themselves under a common military command 81 years ago, the result was the liberation of all of Greece from Persian domination. That tiny, divided Greece could bring down the monstrous Persian army was a thunderbolt for the world. The entire Persian empire trembled at its foundations. But even if the struggle was waged in the name of the Delian League, and even if it boasted many Athenian strategists like Themistocles, victorious at Salamis, or Cimon, son of Miltiades, whose victory at Mycale heralded the liberation of the Greeks from the Ionian coast, Athens, having achieved victory, saw no reason to remain a mere participant in the Delian League when it possessed the most developed economy, a major city-state, one of the most capable shipbuilding arsenals, and the best strategists. The impoverished city-states, under pressure, agreed to pay their contributions to Athens rather than maintain a defensive fleet that exceeded their means. Consequently, Athens began to consider itself the head of Greek military command, and also began to manage the funds itself and act as master over the confederate cities. The Treasury was removed from the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos and brought to Athens. Contributions were increased. Cities that began to revolt against Athenian domination, such as Naxos and Thasos, then Potidaea, Corinth, and Melos, were violently subdued. This is what also happened during the reign of Pericles : the gradual crushing of the liberties of the Greek cities. Certainly, this was also a time of great construction, enrichment, and glory for the city, but it was during this period of splendor that the irreversible and fatal turning point for our city occurred. The small towns were held in check by their poverty. The large cities were held in check by military force. The patriotic fervor that reigned in Athens was based on the accumulation of wealth piled up on the docks of Piraeus. If the Athenian came to see his domination of the world as natural, the material basis of this enthusiasm stemmed from the marvelous goods arriving from Sicily, Italy, Cyprus, Egypt, Lydia,from Pontus, the Peloponnese, and a thousand other places on earth. I will even quote our friend Xenophon, who stated at that time in his famous work entitled "The Revenues of Attica" :"I would not consider unreasonable the opinion of those who place this city at the center of Greece and even of the entire universe." And I must admit that many of us suffered from the same optical illusion.

Athens' domination over the city-states became increasingly oppressive. They were forbidden to mint their own coins and were forced to accept Athenian currency. The justice systems of these now-dependent city-states were also administered by Athens. All power, along with the bulk of wealth and weapons, were ultimately centralized there. And it was in this context that the existence of Sparta, capable of military defense and political independence, could only cast a shadow over Athens. An endless war then began between the two city-states and the cities that had pledged allegiance to them. While the defensive wars against the Persians and Carthaginians had been popular, this fratricidal conflict eventually wearyed the citizens. And it ended, as we all know, with Athens' defeat and humiliation. A dictatorial regime was then imposed on the city, which lost the means of its defense and its weaponry.

Far from acknowledging their responsibility for these shameful failures, the ruling classes mobilized their political representatives to convince the people that the fundamental choices had always been sound, and that there had been an internal betrayal by critical citizens who had demoralized public opinion with their undermining rhetoric. The witch hunt then began. Socrates was one of its Athenian victims. But the Greek cities had many other victims before him. The island of Melos, for example, where all the adult males were executed and the women and children were dragged into slavery, bears cruel witness to this. In Corcyra (which some call Corfu), the massacres between citizens, for or against Athens, reached unprecedented levels of violence. The true victor of the wars between Sparta and Athens could have been Persia, but it was itself afflicted by a serious internal crisis that rendered it incapable of taking advantage of the situation.

The only victor was death. The plague won, carrying off a large part of the population. To rebuild Athens, Alcibiades had indeed tried to revive patriotic enthusiasm, particularly among the youth, but this was based on illusions : believing that Athens, by mobilizing, would rebuild the alliance of Greek and Italian cities around itself was a pipe dream. Athens had long since ceased to be seen as a defender of liberty, and could no longer be so. This, my friends, is how Athenian policies led the city into the impasse it finds itself in today. This is why Socrates' criticisms of these policies could no longer be tolerated by those who govern us and bear the responsibility for this failure. By portraying Socrates as one of those responsible for Athens' decline, the people, momentarily blinded, were led to turn against him. He was handed over to the wrath of the people by the Heliast tribunal, which had been formed by the People's Assembly. Once again, democracy proved to be nothing more than a manipulation of the people against their own interests.

– Phaedo : The great political formula of Athens, far from the democracy it claimed to be, was the State. It was the least democratic of tools. Officially, the people's assembly was sovereign. It represented the 40,000 citizens—excluding women—less than one-twelfth of the population, since foreigners and slaves were excluded. But, in reality, the development of the State deprived the vast majority of citizens, and especially the poorest among them, of any real power, as they served only as pawns in political maneuvering. The establishment of this governing body, with its armed forces, justice system, and magistrates, was officially intended to allow all citizens to govern, but in fact, only members of the ruling families could hold the principal offices. While Pericles was thus democratically elected for successive terms, the prestigious constructions of Athens poorly concealed the misery of the majority of Athenians, forced to live in smoky huts of wood or sun-dried mud brick in the countryside or to crowd into miserable quarters of cities.

In the heroic age, the four Athenian tribes of Attica were still established in distinct territories ; even the twelve phratries that comprised them seem to have still had separate residences in the twelve cities of Cecrops. The organization was that of the heroic age : assembly of the people, council of the people, and basileus. In peaceful times, each phratry and each tribe administered its own affairs, without recourse to the council of the people or the basileus of Athens.

The reform of Athens was carried out by ruling classes who wanted to establish their independence from the then-dominant kings of Crete. You are all familiar with the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, which served as the historical justification for Athens' claim to unite all of Attica under its control. Crete then dominated Athens, which was forced to provide the Cretan monster, the Minotaur, with seven young men and seven young women to be devoured. Theseus, the son of the king of Athens, asked his father to be included on the list of those to be sacrificed by Athens to Crete. He killed the Minotaur, thus symbolizing the Athenian revolt against ancient Cretan domination. Such is the myth of Theseus, which casts the Athenian heroes in a heroic light in the overthrow of the Cretan tyrants. In reality, they were overthrown by the Cretans, who revolted following the earthquake that destroyed most of the temples and palaces, showing the oppressed that the gods no longer protected their oppressors. Athens took advantage of this to gain its independence.

The constitution attributed to Theseus was established. The change consisted mainly in the fact that a central administration was established in Athens, that is to say, some of the affairs which until then had been administered autonomously by the tribes were declared common affairs and transmitted to the Common Council which sat in Athens.

The office of basileus fell into disuse ; archons, chosen from among the nobility, were placed at the head of the state. The domination of the nobility grew until it became intolerable two hundred years ago. And the principal means of oppressing common liberty was... money and usury. The principal seat of the nobility was in and around Athens, where maritime trade, along with piracy, still practiced occasionally and in addition, enriched them and concentrated financial wealth in their hands. From there, the developing monetary economy penetrated like a dissolving acid into the traditional way of life of rural communities, based on a natural economy. The organization of the gens is utterly incompatible with a monetary economy ; the ruin of the small farmers of Attica coincided with the loosening of the old bonds of the gens that surrounded and protected them. The debt and the mortgage (for the Athenians had even invented the mortgage) respected neither clan nor phratry. And the old system of the gens knew neither money, nor advance, nor debt. This is why the ever-growing and expanding financial domination of the nobility also developed a new customary law to protect the creditor against the debtor, to consecrate the exploitation of the small peasant by the possessor of money. All the fields of Attica bristled with mortgage stelae, on which it was inscribed that this land was pledged to so-and-so, for the sum of so-and-so. The fields that were not thus marked had for the most part already been sold for non-payment of mortgages or interest, and had passed into the ownership of the usurer nobleman ; the peasant had to consider himself lucky if he was allowed to remain there as a tenant farmer and live on one-sixth of the produce of his labor, while he had to pay five-sixths as rent to his new master. There's more : if the proceeds from the sale of the land weren't enough to cover the debt, or if that debt had been incurred without collateral, the debtor had to sell his children into slavery abroad to repay the creditor. The sale of children by their father—this was the first manifestation of paternal rights and monogamy !

But the Athenians were to learn how quickly, once exchange between individuals arose and products were transformed into commodities, the product established its dominance over the producer. With commodity production came the cultivation of the land by individuals for their own benefit, and soon, simultaneously, individual land ownership. Money also arrived, a universal commodity against which all others could be exchanged ; but, in inventing money, people did not realize that they were creating yet another new social force, the one universal force before which all of society would have to bow. And it was this new force, which sprang up suddenly, unbeknownst to and without the will of its creators, that, in all the brutality of its infancy, made the Athenians feel its dominion.

And then, the young state primarily needed its own force, which for the seafaring Athenians could initially only be a naval force aimed at small, isolated wars and the protection of merchant ships. At an undetermined time, but before Solon, the naucraries were established, small territorial districts of twelve per tribe ; each naucrary was required to provide, arm, and equip a warship and also supply two cavalrymen. This institution challenged the clan-based organization in two ways. First, because it created a public force, which was no longer simply synonymous with the armed population as a whole ; and second, because it divided the people for the first time for public purposes, not according to kinship groups, but according to local coexistence.

Solon boasts in his poems of having removed the mortgage markers from indebted fields and of having repatriated people who, because they had fallen into debt, had been sold abroad as slaves or had sought refuge there. This was only possible through an open violation of property rights. And in fact, from the first to the last, all so-called political revolutions have been made for the protection of property... of a certain kind, and accomplished by the confiscation, in other words, by the theft... of another kind of property. So true is it that for two thousand five hundred years private property could only be maintained by violating property rights.

But the aim was to prevent a return to such subjugation of free Athenians. This was achieved initially through general measures, such as prohibiting loan contracts secured against the person of the debtor. Furthermore, a maximum limit was set on the amount of land an individual could own, in order to at least somewhat curb the nobility's voracious appetite for peasant land. Then came changes to the constitution.

These are the most essential points for us. The Council was expanded to four hundred members, one hundred from each tribe. Here, then, the tribe still remained the foundation. But this was also the only aspect under which the old organization was incorporated into the new body of the state. For Solon, moreover, divided the citizens into four classes, according to their land ownership and its yield ; 500, 300, and 150 medimni of grain were the minimum yields for the first three classes ; anyone who owned less land, or none at all, fell into the fourth class. All offices could only be held by members of the three upper classes, and the highest offices were held only by members of the first class ; the fourth class had only the right to speak and vote in the assembly of the people. But it was there that all the officials were chosen, there that they had to render their accounts, there that all the laws were made, and the fourth class formed the majority. Aristocratic privileges were partly reaffirmed in the form of privileges of wealth, but the people retained decisive power. Furthermore, the four classes formed the basis of a new military organization. The first two classes provided the cavalry, the third was to serve in the heavy infantry, the fourth served in the light infantry (not wearing armor) or in the navy, and presumably received a salary.

The rapid growth of wealth, commerce, and industry demonstrates how the state, now fully developed in its essential features, responded to the new social condition of the Athenians. The class antagonism upon which social and political institutions rested was no longer between nobles and commoners, but between slaves and freemen, between metics and citizens. At its height, Athens had approximately 90,000 free citizens, including women and children, plus 365,000 slaves of both sexes and 45,000 metics—foreigners and freedmen. For every free citizen, there were therefore at least 18 slaves and more than two metics. The large number of slaves stemmed from the fact that many of them worked together, under the supervision of overseers, in factories and large workshops. But with the development of trade and industry came the accumulation and concentration of wealth in a small number of hands, the impoverishment of the mass of free citizens, who were left with no choice but to compete with the work of slaves by their own manual labor, which was considered dishonorable, vile, and moreover promised little success.

Eubulides : This is how the state developed, because the old institutions of the clan organization were either transformed or suppressed by the introduction of new bodies, and finally completely replaced by true state authorities. Meanwhile, the true "people in arms," protecting themselves within their clans, phratries, and tribes, was replaced by an armed "public force" at the service of these state authorities, and therefore usable even against the people. In the heroic age, the four Athenian tribes of Attica were still established in distinct territories ; even the twelve phratries that comprised them seem to have still had separate residences in the twelve cities of Cecrops. The organization was that of the heroic age : assembly of the people, council of the people, basileus. As far back as recorded history goes, land was already divided and had passed into private ownership, as is consistent with the relatively developed commodity production towards the end of the later stage of barbarism, and the corresponding trade in goods. Besides grain, wine and oil were produced ; maritime trade on the Aegean Sea was increasingly slipping from Phoenician control and falling, to a large extent, into Attic hands. Due to the buying and selling of land, and the progressive division of labor between agriculture and crafts, commerce and navigation, members of the gentes, phratries, and tribes soon had to mingle, and the district of the phratry and tribe received inhabitants who, although compatriots, did not belong to these groups and were therefore strangers in their own territory. For in peaceful times, each phratry and each tribe administered its own affairs, without recourse to the People's Council or the Athenian emperor. But anyone living within the territory of the phratry or tribe without belonging to it could not, of course, participate in this administration.
The established order of the tribal organizations was so disrupted that, even in heroic times, a remedy had to be found. The constitution attributed to Theseus was instituted. The change consisted primarily of the establishment of a central administration in Athens ; that is to say, some of the affairs previously administered autonomously by the tribes were declared common affairs and transferred to the Common Council, which sat in Athens. In doing so, the Athenians went a step further than any of the indigenous peoples of America had ever gone : instead of a simple confederation of juxtaposed tribes, they were united into a single people. Thus was born an Athenian national law, a general law that was above the legal customs of the tribes and clans ; the Athenian citizen, as such, obtained specific rights and new legal protection, even in a territory where he was not a member of the tribe. But, at the same time, the first step had been taken toward the center of the clan organization ; for it was the first step toward the subsequent admission of citizens from outside the tribes throughout Attica, who were and remained entirely outside the Athenian clan organization. A second institution attributed to Theseus was the division of the entire population, without regard to clan, phratry, or tribe, into three classes : the eupatrids or nobles, the geomores or farmers, and the demiurges or artisans, and the granting to the nobility of the exclusive right to public office. This division shows that the custom of entrusting clan offices to certain families had already transformed into a largely uncontested right of these families to these positions ; that these families, powerful elsewhere due to their wealth, were beginning to group themselves outside their clans into a distinct, privileged class, and that the nascent state enshrined this claim. It further demonstrates that the division of labor between farmers and artisans was already pronounced enough to rival the former classification by clans and tribes for preeminence in social importance. Finally, it proclaims the irreconcilable antagonism between clan society and the State ; the first attempt to form the State consists of dismantling the clans, dividing the members of each into privileged and disadvantaged, and the latter, in turn, into two classes of workers, thus setting them against one another.
The clan-based organization is utterly incompatible with a monetary economy ; the ruin of the small farmers of Attica coincided with the loosening of the old clan-based ties that surrounded and protected them. Loans and mortgages (for the Athenians had even invented the mortgage) respected neither clan nor phratry. And the old clan-based organization knew neither money, nor advances, nor debts. This is why the ever-flourishing and widespread financial domination of the nobility also developed a new customary law to protect the creditor against the debtor, to consecrate the exploitation of the small farmer by the possessor of money. All the fields of Attica bristled with mortgage stelae, on which it was inscribed that this land was pledged to so-and-so, for the sum of so-and-so. The fields that were not thus marked had for the most part already been sold for non-payment of mortgages or interest, and had passed into the possession of the usurer nobleman ; The peasant was to consider himself fortunate if he was allowed to remain as a tenant farmer and live on one-sixth of the produce of his labor, while he had to pay five-sixths as rent to his new master. Furthermore, if the proceeds from the sale of the land were insufficient to cover the debt, or if this debt had been incurred without collateral, the debtor had to sell his children into slavery abroad to repay the creditor. The sale of children by their father—such was the first fruit of paternal right and monogamy ! And if the vampire was not yet sated, he could sell his debtor himself into slavery. Such was the sweet dawn of civilization among the Athenian people.
But the Athenians were to learn how quickly, once exchange between individuals had begun and through the transformation of products into commodities, the product established its dominance over the producer. With commodity production came the cultivation of the land by individuals for their own benefit, and soon, simultaneously, individual land ownership. Money also arrived, a universal commodity against which all others could be exchanged ; but, in inventing money, people did not realize that they were creating yet another new social force, the single universal force before which all of society would have to bow. And it was this new force, which sprang up suddenly, unbeknownst to and without the will of its own creators, that, in all the brutality of its youth, made the Athenians feel its dominion.

– Xenophon : If Athens developed the state, it claimed it was to defend itself against external attacks, but it was even more so to defend itself against social revolutions. As I wrote in "Cyropaedia," there were many revolutions against all kinds of political regimes :

"I was observing one day how many democracies have been overthrown by men who preferred any other form of government, how many monarchies and oligarchies have been destroyed by popular factions, how many ambitious men have been stripped of the sovereign power they had just usurped, and how much one admires the happiness and skill of those who have managed to maintain themselves in power, even for a short time. "
The social revolution that pitted rich against poor in Greece for 50 years, two hundred years ago, and Athens experienced the citizens' revolution for over a year, 110 years ago.

Throughout all these upheavals, Greece experienced successive periods of monarchy, communal rule, aristocracy, oligarchy, monopolization of power by large landowners and slave owners, and tyranny, which was followed by popular revolutions in every city. Solon managed to channel these revolutions. He declared : “I gave the people as much as they needed, but no more. For those who had the strength and commanded respect through their wealth, I also ensured that they would not suffer anything undignified.” Far from giving power to the demos, Solon prevented the revolutionary struggles—admittedly discontinuous, irregular, and episodic depending on the city, but extremely fierce at critical moments—from ultimately overthrowing the ruling classes completely. Tyranny arose in Argos, then Corinth, Sycyone, and even here in Megara, then Athens, Samos, Naxos, and Miletus, only because the hereditary aristocracies were incapable of containing or resolving the growing social conflicts that mobilized an increasing urban population and an indebted and impoverished peasantry. To these social factors were added other revolutionary political causes, such as the struggles between city-states, between Argos and Sparta, or between Athens and Megara. Tyranny took advantage of the need to resist powerful neighbors, not only neighboring city-states but especially Lydia, Persia, and Carthage. The great weakness of tyranny was that it depended on the abilities of a single man. As soon as power overstepped acceptable boundaries, anger would build and then explode at the slightest provocation : a deterioration of the climate, a drought, a violent storm, or an earthquake would signal that the gods no longer protected the regime and would be the signal for revolt. All tyrannies, one after another, fell in this way, just as monarchies had before them. Democracy has proven far more stable : those at the head may fall, but the regime as a whole remains in power despite social movements and revolutions. This was the system chosen by Athens.

As for Sparta, it favored the old system of shared poverty, akin to a community of property among citizens, peasants, and soldiers. These two systems, which proved relatively stable, were bound to grow in strength and eventually clash. The Spartan system was that of an armed people, where the state supported the ruling classes. The population consisted of Spartans, Perioeci, and Helots—that is, citizens, foreigners, and slaves. In fact, the Helot occupied an intermediate position between a free man and a slave. It was a servile condition. He was not part of the citizenry and had no political rights. The state monitored the Helots, defining their duties, obligations, and also their rights in relation to landowners.

This is how the helots were enslaved. The Achaeans fought their last battle against the Spartan king Alcamenes, and this city provided the first serfs of the state ; the name helots later became the common name for all those subjected to the same servitude, even the Dorians of Messenia. The helot class was an integral part of the social system in the so-called Constitution of Lycurgus, which represents the oldest institutions of Sparta. They worked, under the conditions we will see, the allotments distributed to the Spartans in the region that essentially comprised the Eurotas valley. The Messenian Wars led to the formation of a second group of helots. The first war deprived the Messenians of their political independence ; They mostly became perioikoi, had to swear never to revolt, and to take part, in mourning attire, with their wives and children, in the funerals of the kings of Sparta and the principal Spartan magistrates ; they retained possession of their lands, in exchange for the payment of a tribute equal to half the harvests ; perhaps a part of Messenia was reserved for the Spartans, in particular the lands whose owners had fled in various directions, to Argos, Sicyon, Eleusis, and Arcadia. The Third Messenian War was provoked by the uprising of the helots of Laconia, after the earthquake of about sixty years ago ; the Messenians, refugees on Mount Ithomius, resisted for ten years and obtained, by a capitulation, the right to withdraw freely with their wives and children, swearing never to return to the Peloponnese ; But the helots, leaders of the sedition, were executed, the others transformed into veritable slaves.
The division of social activities was as follows : the Spartans were content to wage war, while production was entirely ensured by the Perioeci and the Helots. Revolts among the Spartan Helots were constantly simmering beneath the surface and sometimes erupted with the full force of a conflagration. Revolutions were frequent in Sparta, and in particular, following Sparta's conquest of Messenia, Spartan citizens who had not participated in the war were sidelined by the warriors and, consequently, joined forces with the Helots to revolt. Then Messenia itself revolted against Spartan rule, and, due in particular to a very strong sense of discontent among the Spartans themselves, Sparta had great difficulty suppressing the uprising. When the Helots of Messenia revolted, it was not a new phenomenon. At the end of the century, the Penestae of Thessaly rose up. The Messenian revolt led to the Second Helot War, which this time ended with the complete subjugation of the vanquished. The Messenians lost their lands and were assimilated into the Lacenion Helots ; only a few coastal towns retained their status as perioikoi cities. The Messenians would henceforth constitute the vast majority of the Helots. A little less than a hundred years later, the entire political and social equilibrium of the principal archaic city, Sparta, was destroyed. Externally, too, Sparta was forced to maintain order in the Peloponnese, as any revolt in the islands risked joining forces with the Helots to overthrow the Spartan regime. Conversely, the growth of Athens, far exceeding the wealth and population of Sparta, could not support the continued existence of an independent city like Sparta. The foundations for endless internal wars were well established… It was inevitable that the Peloponnesian League, initially called “the Spartans and their allies,” would become the League of Athens and its allies, and then the Athenian Empire.
Unlike Sparta, all free men in Athens were always citizens. There were no Perioeci or Helots. All inhabitants were citizens, and all slaves came from outside the city. This did not prevent class struggles from existing in Athens. The aristocratic Eupatrid families were repeatedly threatened in their power and wealth by revolutions of the lower classes. Solon was an Eupatrid who understood that the development of revolutionary struggles would be catastrophic for the ruling classes if exploitation were not regulated and limited, and if rights were not granted to the lower classes, the plebeians. The aim of the successive reforms of Draco and especially Solon was to divert the anger of the poorest and diminish its power in order to stabilize society. But Solon never went so far as to seize land from the wealthy to distribute it to the destitute ! His reform was as much political as it was social. He established four classes based on land income, from which magistrates would be appointed. However, the lower classes were only eligible for the lowest magistracies. The people were involved in political leadership, but in a measured and carefully calculated way, based on social criteria. The poor were thus recognized as part of the demos, but only minimally.

However, it was a tyranny, that of the Pisistratids, and not democracy, that fostered in Athens the popular taste for gathering, for culture, for meeting in the heart of Athens, for celebrating festivals, and for practicing religions. They were the ones who built a great temple dedicated to Athena on the Acropolis (destroyed by the Persians, it would later be replaced by the Parthenon), and began another temple dedicated to Olympian Zeus. They developed the great popular cults, the tragic choruses, the competitions, the festivals, and, for the Dionysia, they called upon poets and musicians. When they were overthrown after two years of civil war, Cleisthenes reshaped the constitution, establishing the structures of Athenian democracy as we know them, drawing upon the patriotic sentiments that had already developed. At the time, religiously speaking, no sanctuary, not even on the Acropolis, could rival Delphi in importance. Through the Pythia, Apollo answered the questions of Greek citizens who came to him. The outcome of wars, civil wars, revolutions, and other everyday problems depended on the interpretations of the women who answered for Apollo, as the god's message was not explicitly stated. But the very importance of Delphi eventually became a problem for Athens, and if the Delphic Pythia declared herself in favor of Socrates or an alliance between Athens and Sparta, rather than Athenian domination, it is no wonder that the leaders of Athens preferred to have local gods under their control, gods who would deliver a message much more aligned with their interests.

Aeschines : Plato and Xenophon, allow me to address you both, since, after Socrates' death, you are the most renowned of the Athenian thinkers, you who followed our master for many years. Plato, I must acknowledge that you have always clearly and courageously defended the ideas you developed through philosophical training with the best teachers, and yet I deny you the right to speak in Socrates' name, particularly on the theses you have just developed concerning the State, which do not seem to me to be those I heard from his own lips. You should write in your dialogues : "This is what Plato thinks," and not "This is what Socrates said !" I will give you just one example, the one where Socrates said to Thrasymachus : "The State is an army, a band of brigands, thieves, or any other gang of criminals somehow associated for some evil deed."

That's a definition that has the merit of being clear ! And when Socrates says "the State," he's not talking about one country or another, nor one era or another. This vindicates those who claimed that Socrates supported the Spartan and Cretan states. On the other hand, when he speaks of his ideal society, it's no longer about the State. It's about the direct power of the people. Those he considers indispensable are artisans, fishermen, farmers, sailors, and merchants, but not the military, politicians, judges, administrators—the entire apparatus of the State. Plato, can you tell us if you differ from Xenophon's point of view ? And you, Xenophon, what do you think of what Plato has just said ? This is important for all of us, because you two are rightly considered the most illustrious of our master's disciples, those who have known and followed him for a long time, and the most brilliant thinkers of Greece. In order for us to see what future our group of followers of Socratic thought has, it is important for us to know if the most eminent among us agree on our goals. What would be the point of bringing together the most competent men from multiple fundamental fields if they have completely divergent objectives ?

Xenophon : Thank you for addressing me in this way, Aeschines. And I believe I have shown many times that I am not averse to developing my points of view. Everyone can form their own opinion, especially since, unlike Socrates, I have chosen to commit my analyses and reports on past history to writing. But why don't you ask me about your own point of view ? One is never so eager to hear the views of those close to us as one is to hear one's own opinions, and that is the most enriching. Isn't it ? Disagreements between us are possible even if we all claim to follow Socrates, and in convening this meeting in homage to Socrates, I certainly didn't intend for it to be an assembly based on the unanimity of the participants. I approve of you, Aeschines, placing the question of the State at the forefront, for what is decisive in the situation of a people is the way in which the State is governed. The state, you say, is not the savior of the people and cannot do much in their place. You are not wrong. However, it is important not to leave it in the hands of demagogues, the corrupt, and the vicious. You will agree. It is important to train those who will be entrusted with high office. For my part, I have never hidden the fact that I do not condemn the social order of Athens, but only its political and military leadership. I do not advocate changing the place of foreigners, slaves, or women in our society. The gods have adapted the nature of women to domestic work and care. Women must stay at home to raise children and manage the household. Residents have paid to live in the city, and this allows them to run shops and workshops. They must not divert their time with activities that would interfere with this trade. For example, they must not go to war or vote with the citizens. We cannot abolish the social order, because everyone is essential to everyone else. Without servile labor, there is no well-being and no democracy. That is my point of view.

Plato : Aeschines, I would first like to remind you that, in my opinion, the education of statesmen is the crucial point of any philosophy of governing society. I have thoroughly studied how the leaders of our societies, as well as those of neighboring societies, were educated, and it seems to me that Cyrus the Younger, the ruler of Persia, received a very limited education. If we are to influence kings, shouldn't those kings be philosophers ? Persia in recent years has not seemed to me to be governed by wisdom and philosophy any more than Athens at its worst… Let that suffice for my answer !

In my opinion, Socrates was not a victim of defeats or of the political and social crisis, but rather of the hatred his method of intellectual midwifery provoked among those who benefited from the system. His dialectic of questioning was wrongly perceived as denunciation or malicious mockery. Yet, Socrates was right : humankind needs this external questioning to discover itself, to recognize its deeply buried and hidden desires and feelings. Socrates' maieutic method earned him many enemies who eventually united against him. Nevertheless, even during his trial, Socrates remained committed to his method of discourse, based on questioning. And what saddens me today is not that some are for Sparta or against Athens, but that Socrates' method is so blatantly disregarded that no one even thinks to question the other… Socrates preserved his identity despite all the pressures, applying his own maxims to himself to the very end. We must not forget that Socrates always recalled the inscription on the Temple of Delphi : "Know thyself."

– Ichtyas : To reduce Socrates' aims to maieutics, the method of "midwifery" of souls, that accuses you far more, Plato, than all your possessions and all your income as a wealthy heir. Socrates had, in a sense, withdrawn from public life. He didn't run for office. He didn't participate in the farcical "democracy." He exposed it. But he pursued his own politics. Plato, you know this well, because even if today you would like to erase him with your writings, you participated in Socrates' clandestine political meetings and were even one of their most fervent and active organizers ! I see that Socrates' death was enough for us to completely free ourselves from his influence !

– Crito : There are already four Socratic schools of philosophy, and there's likely to be as many versions of who Socrates was and what he wanted as there are disciples of Socrates. Since our master never wanted to write down or have his words transcribed, it will be easy for anyone in a few years to attribute any words to him.

Eubulides : It's not so simple to invent what Socrates said. You can't make him out to be some kind of tranquil sage, because the Athenian authorities have just shown us that this philosopher was considered dangerous by those same authorities ! Certainly, Athens, and especially its ruling class, distrusted Socrates and his acerbic remarks. They don't like harbingers of doom. But that's not all. A power structure cannot tolerate someone with political influence refusing to participate in the political institutions of society, regardless of who the leaders are or the political regime, whether dictatorship or democracy. If you discover that this politician is discreetly maintaining a group of young people, you suspect it's not within the framework of the institutions. As soon as the social and political crisis worsens, the ruling classes no longer want this group. By getting rid of Socrates, they dissolved, in Athens, the group of young people close to Socrates. The leaders of Athens realized that Socrates' group, without its master, was nothing. Those who remained revolutionary had to leave the city.

This is where the Athenian power structure made its political gamble. There is no mortal danger to the ruling classes as long as there are revolutionaries without a revolutionary opportunity, or revolutions without revolutionaries. However, it is crucial for them to get rid of revolutionaries as quickly as potentially revolutionary crises loom. Consequently, it is certain that the Athenian ruling classes would have disposed of a discredited Socrates one way or another had his trial not yielded the expected result, even if it meant having him assassinated in a secluded street. The Athenian leaders knew that a segment of the citizens was seeking scapegoats for the military, political, and social catastrophe. By offering them the chance to accuse a philosophy teacher, they were appealing to the most easily manipulated citizens, particularly the poor youth, to indulge their resentment, jealousy, and hatred. They knew how a tribunal of suitably selected and incited Athenian citizens would react.

Charmides : I have listened carefully to your arguments, and I am sure I will anger you all with my intervention. However, I must say this : Socrates, you are the one who first put us in the state we are in. Our failure is your failure. Our catastrophes are also yours. And I will explain why. Socrates, you were a victim, and we are victims, first and foremost of your own method. Did you not cultivate the idea that one could educate the children of the ruling class in a revolutionary way in order to transform the politics of Athens and, consequently, of all of Greece ? Was this not an illusion ? You were able to see that, despite all the intelligence you instilled in Plato, he could not escape the constraints imposed by his class. Socrates, you fostered the dynamism of an Alcibiades whom you helped in countless ways to gain popularity, including helping him attain military honors that you deserved and he did not. You helped him in this way, but you also encouraged him to believe in himself, which produced the Alcibiades we knew, drunk on his own popularity. Socrates, you cultivated illusions about intellectual superiority and the ability to objectively analyze situations, to the point that some saw it as a superior means to social or political struggle. Some may have believed, through your influence, that philosophical ideas avoided such struggles. Yet, it is violence that engenders new societies, not your dialogues, however interesting they may be. Therefore, I believe, Socrates, if you can hear us, that your teachings in no way protected us from the misfortunes that were to befall us.

Aeschines : I believe our debate has had at least one merit : clarifying the differences between us, and they are now crystal clear. The divergent viewpoints of our friends highlight how far each of us has drifted apart by following our own path. And I think Socrates was the first to realize what was becoming of his disciples. They themselves risked pushing him to compromise with power, to back down in the face of the Athenian ruling class, whether out of calculation, fear, political realism, or opportunism. Yes, under these circumstances, Socrates chose to leave. The reasons for this choice have nothing to do with his advanced age or his state of health. To present Socrates as an old man fearful of old age is to misunderstand him ! As his end approached, didn't Socrates declare : "It would be shameful for a man of my age to worry about the approach of death" ? This doesn't mean he didn't fear death, but neither did it mean he feared old age… The fear of personal hardship and material suffering never guided him, he who had faced death in war so many times. For me, what explains his apparent reluctance to defend himself before his judges is, paradoxically, that he maintains his fight against society. In his statements, he doesn't back down on anything, doesn't renounce any idea, doesn't deny anything, doesn't admit any wrongdoing, and maintains his political project intact. On the other hand, he thus acknowledges that his political project—that of rebuilding the city by constructing, around himself, a circle of conscious and responsible citizens capable of leading it—has encountered unfavorable circumstances and reached its limits. But his ideas, his philosophy, his conceptions—that is his true work, and he defends it by accepting death. It was dying with dignity, as he had lived. His ideas were aimed at achieving immortality !

And the very cause of Socrates' political failure lies right here among us. Let's look at ourselves, my friends. We are the ones who killed Socrates. During his lifetime, didn't Socrates successively distinguish himself from each of us ? Didn't he say to Alcibiades, "Your advantages have inspired you with such pride that you despise all men as inferior to you" ? Didn't he say, regarding Plato, "By Heracles, what falsehoods this young man speaks about me !" ? Didn't Plato reply to Socrates, "I'm afraid I'm not what you would like me to be, but rather, according to Homer, the mediocre man who comes to the table of the wise man uninvited" ? Did he not say to those who, like Alcibiades or Charmides, desired to seize power, claiming to do good : "The city where those who should hold power are least desirous of power is necessarily the one that is best and most peacefully governed" ? I recall Socrates' words before the tribunal : "Throughout my life, whenever I have taken part in public affairs, you will find me the same ; the same again in my private relationships, never yielding anything to anyone against justice, not even to any of those tyrants whom my slanderers would have us believe were my disciples. I have never been anyone's master ; but if anyone, young or old, has wished to speak with me and see how I carry out my duties, I have refused no one this pleasure."

Unlike Socrates, and like each of you, I fear tyrants and I, too, dare not stand firm against them. Who among us has stood firm against dictatorship ? Who has never been tempted by power, honors, flattery, money, or luxury ? None !
Who among us, then, can truly call themselves a disciple of Socrates ? Which one could claim to be the continuator of his entire struggle ? Is it Charmides, today the most vindictive against us, but who, yesterday, proved himself a perfect member of a dictatorship when it came to wielding power in Athens ? Is it Xenophon, who insisted on pursuing his military adventures in other territories, even when his battles were far from being guided by the defense of any ideal or the general interest of the peoples whom Socrates championed ? Was it Plato who, during his lifetime, began selling Socrates' philosophy to the general public in as unrevolutionary a form as possible, to the point that Socrates had to publicly distance himself from it ? Was it Alcibiades who achieved great success first in Athens, becoming head of state and general, and then chose to go to Sparta, to the opposing army ? Was it Antisthenes, certainly radical and rigorous in his ideals, but who despised humanity ? Is it those among us who want to limit revolution to a few changes in the city's government ? Is it those who are more radical but unwilling to sacrifice anything of their own way of life ? Who dared to publicly advocate for the abolition of slavery, the very foundation of our societies ? Who openly campaigned for the liberation of women, the most suffering half of humanity ? Who wants to free children, who are considered the property of their fathers within the home, which has become their prison ? None ! In any case, none of us dares to publicly declare that they must be freed from their chains ! Yes, my friends, the tribunal that condemned Socrates was us : it was that of his disciples ! But in doing so, we have only condemned ourselves to impotence. As for Socrates, yes, he was a revolutionary. The Athenian state, in the process of building its dictatorship on Greece, did him the greatest honor by condemning him to death, which shows that it understood very well that ideas are a revolutionary force.

Yes, Socrates was a philosopher. But what kind of philosopher ? He himself said :

“It must be said, first of all, that from their youth, philosophers do not know which way leads to the agora, nor where the court, the council chamber, or any other public meeting place is located. They have neither eyes nor ears for the laws and decrees proclaimed or written. (…) Has any good or bad fortune befallen the State, (…) the philosopher has no more knowledge of it than of the number of drops of water in the sea. He doesn't even know that he is ignorant of all this (…) it is because only his body is present and dwells in the city, while his thought, regarding all this with disdain as petty and worthless things, roams everywhere (…) scrutinizing nature in every way (…) So, my friend, as I said at the beginning, this is what our philosopher is like in the private and public relationships he has with his fellow men. When he is forced to argue in a court or somewhere else (…) his terrible clumsiness makes him appear a fool.” In the heat of insults, he can't muster a single insult of his own against anyone. (...) When people praise and boast, he laughs, but genuinely, and is taken for a fool. He hears a tyrant or a king being praised, and imagines he's hearing the extolling of some shepherd, swineherd, shepherd, or cowherd who gets a lot of milk from his flock. (...) He hears a man who owns a very large tract of land described as prodigiously rich, and he finds it insignificant, accustomed as he is to considering the whole world his own. As for those who sing the praises of nobility and say that a man is well-born because he can prove he has seven wealthy ancestors, he believes that this praise comes from people with narrow and short-sighted views because, lacking education, they can never fix their gaze upon the whole of humankind, nor realize that each of us has countless myriads of forebears and ancestors, among them rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks who have succeeded one another by the thousands in every family. That someone should boast of a line of twenty-five ancestors and trace their origins back to Heracles, son of Amphitryon, he sees in this only a strange pettiness of mind. (...) In all these circumstances, the common people mock the philosopher, who sometimes appears to them disdainful, sometimes ignorant of what is right at their feet, and perplexed about everything.

A curious description of what a philosopher should be ! It shows that the philosopher expects nothing from the State. That his object of study is rather the world, civil society, the society of people who work and live by their labor. Not that of politicians or the ruling classes. Philosophically, too, Socrates was revolutionary since he proposed to understand the world through its scientific study, whether it be the material world or human society.

The accusations at Socrates' trial were, admittedly, purely slanderous. Socrates was not leading the youth astray, nor was he corrupting them. He was merely trying to win them over to the revolutionary ideal. Aristophanes sought to ridicule this ideal and drag it through the mud, but he started from Socrates' true ideas in order to better refute them. He satirized them, ridiculing Socrates measuring the height of a flea's jump with Chaerephon, but he knew perfectly well what Socrates was trying to demonstrate : that the scientific study of reality leads to an understanding of the leaps, the discontinuities of reality, highlighted by Zeno of Elea. He knew that Socrates' dialectic was not one of discourse, but one encompassing nature, humanity, and society. Consequently, the established order could be brutally transformed into its opposite, for it contained within itself explosive contradictions. And the goal of men and women aware of human needs had to be to move from this exploitative society to one where the communal ownership of the means of production would lead human beings to work only to satisfy their true needs, for the well-being of all and not just a minority. This meant the liberation of slaves, the equality of all people, whether local or foreign, man or woman, former slaves or former citizens, adult or child. Yes, this ideal could frighten the ruling classes ! As Socrates said : "We believe we shape the happy city, not by taking a small number of its inhabitants aside to make them happy, but by considering it as a whole."

What should we call Socrates' ideal ? Neither virtue, nor good behavior, nor self-knowledge, nor good discourse, much to the chagrin of those who call themselves his disciples ! No ! It is communism....

Let us recall what Socrates declared to Glaucon :

"Let us first consider the State. (...) What constitution is meant by oligarchy ? It is the form of government founded on property ownership, where the rich rule and the poor have no share in authority. (...) This hoarding of gold, where everyone piles up, is what destroys this kind of government. First, they discover reasons for spending, and to satisfy them, they bend the laws and no longer obey them, neither they nor their wives. (...) Necessarily, such a State is not one, but two : that of the poor and that of the rich, who inhabit the same land and constantly conspire against one another. (...) Some will be excessively rich and others destitute. (...) It is evident that wherever you see beggars in a State, the same place harbors thieves, pickpockets, sacrilegious people, and evildoers of every kind. (...) Now, as it suffices for a A small, weak body, susceptible to illness from the slightest external shock, sometimes even to unforeseen disturbances, so too does a state, in a similar situation, become prey to disease and internal strife at the slightest opportunity. (...) Is it not the same in a democracy founded on money ? Was it not excessive wealth that served to establish the oligarchy ? (...) Well, it is the same pursuit of money, the same insatiable desire, that causes the downfall of the democracy founded on the same insatiable desire for the accumulation of goods. (...) The same disease that, born in the oligarchy, caused its ruin, also arises in democracy, develops there with greater force and virulence, and reduces the democratic state to slavery. (...) Let us mentally divide the democratic state into the three classes of which it is composed. The first is the same breed that developed at the head of The oligarchy. (...) Then there is another class that always distinguishes itself from the multitude. This is the class that seeks money. (...) The third class is the people, that is to say, all manual laborers and private individuals uninvolved in public affairs who possess only a small amount of wealth. In a democracy, this would be the most numerous and therefore the most powerful class if it were assembled. But it is hardly inclined to assemble. (...) The people are accustomed to choosing a favorite whom they place at their head and whose power they nurture and increase. (...) And the protector of the people begins to transform into a tyrant. (...) This is the moment for all the ambitious who have reached this point to resort to the famous request of the tyrant, to ask the people for bodyguards, so that the "defender of the people" may remain to serve them. And the people give them to him ; for all their fears are for the defender of the people. For their own defense, they do nothing Nothing : he's too self-assured. (...) In the first few days, he only smiles and greets everyone he meets, denying that he's a tyrant,He multiplies promises, both privately and publicly, he forgives debts and distributes land to the people and his favorites, and affects benevolence and gentleness toward everyone. (...) But, when he has finished with his external enemies, (...) he constantly stirs up wars so that the people will need a leader. And also, he arranges for the citizens to be impoverished by taxes and thus forced to attend to their daily needs and conspire less against him. And if he suspects that some of them are too independent-minded to submit to his rule, war gives him a pretext to destroy them by delivering them into the hands of the enemy. For all these reasons, a tyrant is always compelled to foment wars. (...) Thus, in reality, whatever some people may think, the true tyrant is a true slave, of extreme baseness and servility, reduced as he is to flattering the most wicked men, powerless to satisfy his own desires in the slightest (...) He spends his life in continual fear, prey to convulsive pains. (...) But besides these evils, he is a victim of those that power develops even further, namely envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, will the wise man refuse to take part in public affairs if he has such ideas ? By Jove ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe that there is one like it anywhere in the world.' (...) It matters not whether this State has been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized, it is on this one and this one alone that it will base itself and whose laws it will follow."He is a victim of those things that power only exacerbates—I mean envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, the wise man will refuse to take part in public affairs if he harbors such ideas ? No, by the Dog ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively so. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe there is one like it anywhere in the world. (...) It matters little whether this state has already been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized ; it is on this one, and this one alone, that he will focus his attention and whose laws he will follow.'He is a victim of those things that power only exacerbates—I mean envy, treachery, injustice, and a lack of friends. (...) So, the wise man will refuse to take part in public affairs if he harbors such ideas ? No, by the Dog ! He will attend to them in his own state, and actively so. 'I understand,' he replied, 'you are speaking of the state whose plan we have just outlined, and which exists only in our discussions ; for I do not believe there is one like it anywhere in the world. (...) It matters little whether this state has already been realized somewhere or is yet to be realized ; it is on this one, and this one alone, that he will focus his attention and whose laws he will follow.'

It seems to me that, after such statements, we can hardly claim that Socrates was condemned by Athens simply because he practiced philosophy too freely. No, it was indeed Socrates' revolutionary politics, inseparable from his revolutionary philosophy, that was condemned.

His last words before his death were :

“Now, if you wish to discover the truth more easily, do not limit your inquiry to humankind ; extend it to all animals and plants, in short, to everything that comes into being, and let us see, in considering all this, whether it is true that nothing can come into being except from its opposite, when it has an opposite. (…) Let us see, then, whether it is a necessity that everything that has an opposite comes into being from nothing other than its opposite. (…) Another question : is there not, between all these pairs of opposites, a double birth, one that draws one of the two opposites from the other, and the other that draws the latter from the first ? (…) Is it not the same with what we call decomposition and combination, cooling and heating, and so on with everything ?” And if sometimes words fail us to describe it, in fact at least, it is always a necessity that it be so, that opposites are born from one another and that there is generation from one to the other. (…) Don't you admit that the opposite of life is death ? (…) And that they are born from one another ? (…) If, in fact, births were not balanced from one opposite to the other, and turned, so to speak, in a circle, if, on the contrary, they occurred in a straight line and only from one opposite to the one facing it, if they did not return to the other and did not take the opposite direction, you realize that in the end all things would have the same form and would fall into the same state and that generation would cease. (…) If, for example, drowsiness existed on its own, without the awakening that comes from sleep to balance it, you realize (…) that everyone would be asleep. (…) Where does the idea of equality come from ? (…) We say that there is something equal ; I don't mean one piece of wood equal to another piece of wood, nor one stone equal to another, nor anything of the sort, but something else that is beyond all these, equality itself. (…) We must therefore have been aware of equality before the time when, seeing equal things for the first time, we said to ourselves : “All these things tend toward equality, but are only imperfectly so.” (…) Equality must therefore have existed before we were born in order for it to appear to us afterward as a memory. (…) Does it also seem to you that all men can account for these realities we were discussing earlier ? (…) Don't you believe that all men are aware of these realities ? (…) Bring me the poison.

Until then, almost all of us had managed to hold back our tears ; but when we saw him drink, and once he had drunk, we were no longer in control. "What are you doing, my strange friends ?" he cried. "Be calm and steadfast."

Such was Socrates. Future generations will not forget him. He died so that his ideal might live on ! He now belongs to all humanity and he is eternal...

– Menexemus : Socrates practiced politics discreetly—that was his expression—in order to fight the system while protecting himself and avoiding too much attention. He didn't believe that the system could be reformed from within. When one is truly against oppression, dictatorship, slavery, exploitation, and the domination of foreigners, serfs, women, and children, one must wage one's battle without seeking to enter the institutions, however "democratic" they may be toward free men. He was able, discreetly, to assemble a small team of revolutionaries who reasoned and educated themselves together, in anticipation of times when the world would turn… At his trial, Socrates even allowed himself to explain this. I quote him : “Perhaps it seemed strange to you that I went about the streets, giving advice privately and meddling in the affairs of others, yet dared not appear in public assemblies to advise the republic. No one lives very long if they publicly oppose you or openly try to prevent many injustices and illegalities from being committed in the state. If you truly want to fight for justice and live for a while, you must do so discreetly and without making a public spectacle of yourself.” In fighting against injustice, one must organize discreetly, Socrates reminds us, and protect oneself from the ruling classes. The moment he was exposed, Socrates knew that the ruling classes would not let him live, understanding how dangerous such a man, with his courage and competence, could be to them. Of course, everyone can believe that Socrates' life depended on the outcome of the trial. But, since he had been singled out for public condemnation and in the poisonous atmosphere of the city, had he escaped, he would have been found dead in the streets. Socrates undoubtedly preferred that the murder be clearly attributed to Athens, rather than being eliminated anonymously, as had happened to Chaerephon, Thuicides, and many others during the same period. It was a way of forcing the city to take responsibility for its actions and, thus, to definitively mark history by giving full force to his ideas.

For whom would he have lived any longer ? For his disciples ? No ! He expected nothing but setbacks from them. That is why we must not be mistaken : Socrates left because he no longer counted on us. Who killed Socrates ? We did ! His disciples did ! Weakness ! Self-interest ! Cowardice ! "Protect me from my friends ; I can take care of my enemies" is a well-known proverb. Seeing that, one after another, his friends were either disappearing or becoming just like everyone else—men living for self-interest, without principles, without a worldview, without courage—Socrates understood what the future held for him and how much he would have lost by continuing his academy. Some would use philosophy for personal success, to create fame, or even to seize power. What awaited his "school" was disappointment, betrayals both small and large, and all sorts of abuses. He preferred to leave with his head held high…

Socrates' plea at his trial is a perfect demonstration of this. It didn't just shock his judges and the public ; it startled all of us who were there. We must admit it, even if we claimed to know and understand Socrates. This very astonishment speaks volumes about our distance from the master's personal philosophy. Socrates' entire personal stance, in his life as in his trial, was focused on a single fundamental point, decisive for all others : never to back down on any of his personal convictions, whatever the cost. And this meant : don't concern yourself with public opinion, form your own and then defend it against all odds ; don't change anything you think under the pretext of pleasing the majority ; no self-censorship, no allegiance to the powerful, but also no flattery of the oppressed and the common people. Finally, never give in to friends and family, for it is they (not enemies, not adversaries) who have the power to make us back down from our convictions, claiming that life is more important than ideas. Who did Socrates encounter in his struggle to remain steadfast ? The pressure of all his friends and family : we told him he could make amends, that there was nothing scandalous about pleading guilty, about backtracking on a few statements. All this to save his life, to stay with his loved ones, to live with his children, his family, his friends. Enjoying life seemed so much more important to us then than asserting that the gods were this way or that way, that philosophy should be this way or that way. And we, his friends—and it's true that only our love for him sustained us—we almost contributed to his true destruction by discrediting the very foundation of his life ! Socrates had risked his life countless times on the battlefield, not for honor, nor for glory, nor out of a love of war, but to protect friends, family, loved ones, and his people. And for this, for his ideal, he had not feared death. He had saved his friends at the peril of his own life. And now, his very friends were telling him that he shouldn't risk his life for his ideal, because we needed him to stay with us ! What could be more criminal ! And then we offered him another way to betray his principles, by fleeing from prison… That's how we demonstrated that friends are far more dangerous than enemies. It wasn't the accusers or the Athenian court that could kill Socrates' philosophy. Even today, the only ones capable of killing his philosophy are not Aristophanes or Anytus, or any other enemy of Socrates. It is we who are capable of destroying what Socrates was by giving him a false image, the one that suits us, the one that is bearable for us.

Like you, I am a poor revolutionary and a bad philosopher. Like you, all I can do is lament the death of Socrates, and it is myself I pity in this instance. And that means regretting that Athens is not as my illusions had envisioned the city. Socrates never thought that way. Socrates loved reality too much, finding it too fascinating, to distort it in his own eyes. In his final moments, seeing my sadness, he took me aside and whispered in my ear : “Dying is nothing. What is hard is leaving with the thought : I had wonders right beside me and I didn't even look at them.”

Apollodorus : I have only just understood, and it is to my misfortune. I have lost Socrates a second time ! I have only just opened my mind to what truly happened : it was Socrates who condemned Athens far more than Athens condemned Socrates. It was he who deliberately determined the outcome of the trial by definitively shedding his blood upon the city, which will forever be marked for having murdered the philosopher. But it is Socrates who has thus triumphed. On the other hand, we too are condemned, we his so-called disciples, for Socrates has thus turned away from us. I thought I had wept my heart out at his death, but it was not enough. That Socrates turned away from us is a new suffering. A tiny bit of knowledge has just penetrated me, and already I feel I am suffering too much ! I understand now why Socrates said that we know nothing. Knowledge attracts us like light attracts a moth, but we burn our wings in the process. For many, knowledge means power and the ability to act, but in reality, knowledge is a heavy burden and requires great courage. Have we had enough of that, my friends, to claim to carry on Socrates' legacy, I ask you... In any case, I have just witnessed a new trial : our own. And the conclusion, for me, is clear : we are condemned !

Plato : I understand your discouragement, Apollodorus. Socrates always said, "My questions are dearer to me than all the answers." For him, there is no knowledge without perpetual questioning. But being able to live in a state of constant questioning and challenging all established knowledge—that is the courage Socrates demanded. Where some saw denigration or irony, where others imagined a method of questioning, a dialectic of speech, there was in fact a profound and constant need to question one's vision of reality by asking others how they saw it. This was as much a necessity for understanding the thoughts of others as it was for discovering one's own thoughts and for discovering the world. Socrates' happiness lay in the joy of knowledge. Not the joy of possessing a great deal of knowledge, but the joy of always seeking to understand, of constantly deepening our vision of the world. And the joy of sharing this experience with others. He never tired of admiring the world and discussing it with us ! And for him, there were no those who possessed great knowledge on one side and those who did not on the other. For you too, Apollodorus, joy can continue to come from there : discovering, knowing, and sharing.

Eubulides : Socrates had nothing to regret, for he died for his ideals, just as he had lived. He harbored no illusions about the ruling classes and knew that, having revealed his plans, they would no longer allow him to live in peace. As for us, my friends, what Socrates demonstrates is that life can be founded on choices and that building a life is the finest work a person can accomplish. This work lies before each of us and depends on our will.

Phaedo : Don't be distressed, Apollodorus. Socrates died satisfied with the trick he played on his adversaries, and he had no regrets. And first of all, I want to tell you that it was the politicians, the profiteers, and the ruling classes of Athens who were smeared, not the Athenian people. And certainly not Socrates. The people were momentarily deceived, but they weren't the ones who orchestrated the maneuver to discredit Socrates. It was even orchestrated against the people, whose anger and revolts were feared. There's no reason for regret. What struck me was that Socrates departed content. Content, first of all, with the life he had led and the way he had lived it to the very end. For Socrates lived well. According to the principles he intended to uphold. He was poor, but he didn't care, and laughed at those who pretended to give him gifts, inviting him to courtly meals, for example. He looked at luxurious clothes and food and asked : is this really necessary ? He told off those who wanted to offer him slaves to live off the exploitation of other men. He said to Theodore : "The philosopher, when he hears someone speak of a man who owns ten thousand plethra of land as being prodigiously rich, finds it to be very little, he who is accustomed to thinking about the whole world..."Everything interested him except material gain or honors. He was constantly learning from everything and everyone. He was full of questions, because he believed that the most thoughtful person is always learning. He had already lived several lives. He was initially a brilliant sculptor like his father, having sculpted the statue of the Three Clothed Graces that adorns the entrance to the Acropolis. An infantryman in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, he distinguished himself at the battles of Potidaea, Delos, and Amphipolis, managing to survive many deadly wars while saving several of his comrades. He pursued multiple activities simultaneously. Certainly, he engaged in politics and philosophy. But he also worked at the Euripides Theatre. He sculpted, and beautifully so ! He played the harp. He held every position, from soldier to strategist, from citizen to prime minister, from student to university professor. But his council was that of the revolution, his university, that of the street, his citizens were all people, not just Greeks, not just Athenians. And not just citizens or free men. Not just men, but women too. He did all this without ever abandoning his ideals, without compromising with his adversaries, without yielding to dictatorship or the pressures of democracy. He kept his ideal intact, in the worst of times as well as in times of calm. He yielded neither to misery nor to good fortune, nor to panic or popular fads, nor to the plague, nor to military occupations. He listened neither to the sirens of power nor to those of resentment. Everyone told him a thousand times that he could achieve greater personal success, or success for his ideals, by compromising himself in countless ways, and he simply smiled kindly at them. He questioned them about how to succeed and the goals of that success. And his questions all came back to this one : what is the purpose of life ? Happiness ! Are we happier because we are rich ? Isn't the greatest wealth internal ? How can we make the city happy ? By making people happy ! He didn't oppose collective happiness and individual well-being.

After such a life, Socrates was not afraid of death. This astonishes us, but let us acknowledge that his entire life astonishes us, and that none of us has ever felt capable of living the same life. Of course, we have lost Socrates, but he has not lost his battle. During his trial, he held his head high to the very end. He forced his adversaries either to recant their testimony or to go so far as to kill him. He was not one to beg for leniency by admitting to false accusations. He remained steadfast and upright, applying the principles of his life until his death.

Apollodorus, you raise some excellent questions, and I certainly don't presume to answer them or take them away from you. I wouldn't want to pretend you're simply ignorant and that we have definitive answers. Socrates himself would never have done that. We've simply done as you did and asked ourselves these questions. Your questions are fundamental issues. It's highly likely that generations later, if humanity still exists, others will come and ask them. The important thing is to ask such questions and to delve deeply into this inquiry, courageously and without preconceptions. You'll see that if we do this, we become rich. Not rich in a sum of knowledge, but rich in reflections, personal thoughts, a taste for observing the world, for the philosophical reflection it inspires, for the beauty of nature and for thinking about it. This is not a way for me to dodge your questions, as I will not hide the fact that I tried to answer them.

Even for you, Apollodorus, do not be sad. Socrates has not left you, since his ideas and his memory continue to trouble you. Even the fact that you are not cut out to become a philosopher, or a revolutionary on Socrates' level, nor capable of succeeding him, should not surprise you. You only claimed to have been a faithful friend, and many of us did not aim higher. It was already risky to be Socrates' friend and to accompany him. As for becoming his epigones, that would be tiresome and disappointing. You must be yourself and face reality. As you die, remember his last words. He did not tell us : be wise, nor be virtuous, nor be good revolutionaries, nor be good philosophers, nor be good disciples, nor even spread my ideas well. None of that. He told us : "My friends, be courageous . " In my view, this means : don't be afraid to go wherever your ideas lead you and then defend them to the very end, whatever the cost. Unwittingly, we, his disciples, have just put ourselves on trial ! So, now that our assembly is drawing to a close and nothing but a tribute to his memory is certain to come of it, I propose a libation. Not in honor of Socrates : that would be entirely unbecoming to our departed friend. Nor to the success of his disciples. But let us drink instead to the future humanity, freed from its chains ! I am sure that Socrates would have joined in such a toast in honor of his daimon !

So ! Let us drink together to humanity freed from its chains !

And they all drink, their laughter mingling with tears and sadness…

By Zeus, you will excuse the imprecision of Rovertos Paris's note-taking.

Disclaimer : Rovertos Paris, the rapporteur of this conference, wishes to disclaim all responsibility for the statements made by the supposed disciples of Socrates who participated and cannot guarantee that they were uttered verbatim, given the difficulty of taking notes and then transcribing them accurately. Considering the complexity of the issues addressed—historical, political, social, and philosophical—and given the rapporteur's limitations in understanding and knowledge, the debates of the Megara conference, as reported here, are presented with all due reservations. Anyone who finds that any of the interventions, as reported, are false, based on misinterpretations, nonsense, or have been borrowed from other authors and thinkers, should only address their complaints to the disciples themselves, by communicating them to Paris, who will forward them. Paris claims no ownership of the statements made at the conference, nor any exclusive right to their dissemination.

Socrates, dialectician and communist

What did Socrates mean by his famous "know thyself" ?

Socrates is condemned by us every day.

Ancient Greece : The philosophy of Zeno of Elea and Socrates

The permanent revolution and the end of women's oppression

Karob, Robert Paris — 2026-06-17T03:48:00Z

To the women who are fed up…

…fed up with being treated like sexual submissives

…fed up with a society where they always have to put themselves below

…fed up with a society where women are pointed at and objectified

…fed up with risking violence from men, including their spouses

…fed up with being threatened by wars and civil wars, by fascism and dictatorships, by the abuses of armies

…fed up with being told that their children will have to be sacrificed in the next wars and that they will have to be… satisfied or at least submissive once again
…fed up with their children suffering from diseases linked to capitalism and its stage of collapse (death in childbirth, death from respiratory diseases, cancers due to the agri-food industry, pesticides and fertilizers, due to the chemical, nuclear, metallurgical industries, etc.)

…fed up with this political and social world where women are even more enslaved than the exploited, because they are doubly oppressed and exploited

And to the men who are tired of playing such a role or being considered as such and who do not want to support patriarchal capitalism !

Two days before a women's demonstration on November 22nd, four femicides took place in France on Thursday, November 20th alone, in four very different locations, affecting women of all ages and backgrounds. All were killed by their partner or ex-partner.

Four in a single day in France demonstrates that the wave of violence against women is swelling in this otherwise democratic and wealthy country, as it is throughout the world. And far more than statistics suggest, women are frequently threatened with death, assaulted, raped, and abused, and young women are victims of crimes. Much of this violence occurs within the family and is not even due to external factors, despite the often-heard propaganda falsely attributing this violence to immigration !

According to UN figures, a woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by her intimate partner or another family member.

Indeed, 85,000 women and girls were intentionally killed worldwide in 2023, and 60% of these crimes, or 51,000, were committed by an intimate partner or another family member. Every day, 140 women or girls die at the hands of their partner or a close relative.

There are of course other types of violence, particularly those near places of war, where women are considered spoils of war and violence against them is a way of punishing the population of the opposing camp.

There are also kidnappings carried out by armies at war, whether official armies like in Sudan or terrorist armies like in Nigeria.

It is no coincidence that at the same time we are told that we have to get used to it : we must accept dying… in war.

Because this is also a war that is currently being waged against women.

It's important to remember that women are far more anti-militarist and anti-repression than men, both young and old. Therefore, they must be terrorized to silence them and force them to remain silent for fear of the violence society might inflict upon them.

It is also about creating, through the rise in violence by men against women, a climate of war where young men are proud to participate in a slaughter, as Chief of Staff Mandon so eloquently and with well-chosen words expressed before the deputies and then before the mayors (not the mothers !)…

The more the slide towards widespread war becomes official, the more people know that society is about to descend into the worst kind of violence, and the more crucial the search for scapegoats becomes for the ruling classes who don't want to be blamed for this carnage. Of course, the opposing side is blamed : Russia and China, naturally, but also Iran and North Korea. But then there are immigrants, undocumented immigrants, the unemployed, the Yellow Vest-type rebels, the so-called conspiracy theorists, and the "let's block everything" crowd. And to all these scapegoats, women are inevitably added. They are accused of not understanding the benefits of militaristic nationalism, the necessities of the pursuit of profit even at the expense of the family, the needs of the warrior man and his precious rest…

It is remarkable that at the same time as society is officially fighting against violence and discrimination against women, these are multiplying without the dominant society doing anything to stop them.

To all those women (and men) who are fed up, we say : BREAK WITH THE CAPITALISTS, THEIR SYSTEM, THEIR STATES, THEIR SOCIETY, THEIR INSTITUTIONS, AND JOIN THE REVOLUTIONARY PROLETARIAT TO OVERTHINK THE INFERNAL COUPLE OF PATRIARCHY-CAPITALISM
The permanent revolution and the end of women's oppression

The "permanent revolution" is a political orientation developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. It has nothing in common with the organization in France, which adopted this name without even supporting any of the policies it espouses.

What, then, is this “strategy of permanent revolution” ? Permanent revolution is opposed to reformism, and even to gradual, step-by-step revolution, to supposedly realistic objectives, to the real or imagined prejudices of the proletariat, to the fear of radicalism, to the opposition between the immediate reformist program and the long-term communist program. It aims to transform into revolutionary weapons, to be turned against the system with the maximum force and determination, all the abuses, suffering, and oppression inflicted upon the people by the old reactionary society. To this end, the revolutionary proletariat must become the voice of all those who suffer these evils, their most radical defender, the only one that wishes, without the slightest hesitation, to put a definitive and irreversible end to these ills and their root causes inherent in the system itself.

And, used in this way, the oppression of women is an incredible potential bombshell that the proletariat can send in the face of the capitalist world and imperialist domination over the world.

With the "permanent revolution", the aim is to direct the social revolution of the proletariat in such a way that it is not satisfied with only one of its stages, one of its objectives, one of its demands, but combines them all, links them indissolubly, so that they reinforce each other, destroy the old social and political order from top to bottom, and serve to build the new order, to build socialism and communism.

Regarding the oppression of women, this is not about praising bourgeois and petty-bourgeois feminists, nor about subjugating workers' social movements to such leaders, of course. More generally, it is not a question of the proletariat subservienting itself to bourgeois or petty-bourgeois aspirations for changing an order that has become unbearable for everyone, but, on the contrary, of the proletariat taking the lead in all struggles and using them as weapons to completely overthrow the old economic and social order.

The goal of permanent revolution is not simply to reduce inequalities, nor even to advocate for equality (equality between capitalists and the exploited—what does that even mean ?), nor merely to narrow the immense chasm between rich and poor, to obtain a little more democracy, a little more respect from those in power, a little more peace, a little less war, a little more wealth distributed to the entire population and a little less to the wealthiest, to eliminate the most blatant and barbaric dictatorships, and other such illusory and supposedly progressive objectives. These objectives are all the more illusory because we have reached the stage of capitalist collapse where reform is more illusory than ever, even counter-reforms are no longer sufficient, and the capitalist elite needs an ultra-radical and violent counter-revolution !

No, the social revolution must be permanent, that is to say, it must not stop in the face of any obstacle, must not be satisfied with any half-measures, but must always go further, moving from the demolition of the old medieval and feudal order which still exists everywhere, particularly through religions, states, monarchies and even bourgeois republics, to the complete elimination of military dictatorships by completely disarming the old ruling classes and of course the capitalist bourgeoisie, by eliminating all of its armed forces, by liberating oppressed nationalities, oppressed ethnic groups, oppressed religions, oppressed women, oppressed youth, the impoverished middle classes, etc.

We have shown on this website, Matter and Revolution, that women were once masters of their own destiny and not only were not dominated but played a leading role in society. This is what has been called matriarchy, which is not the opposite of patriarchy in that it does not imply the oppression of men. This refers to the phase of humanity known as primitive communism, which existed throughout the world until the Neolithic period and sometimes even until the Bronze Age—that is, before the great development of agriculture, sedentary lifestyles, and the emergence of social classes and the state, but also before the exploitation of man by man. In other words, until the establishment of patriarchy across almost the entire planet.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8499

But for us, defending the thesis of an ancient matriarchy is not simply about rehabilitating the past of women in early societies. Certainly, this ideological position must be won, but it is for a current purpose, not just a scientific one (prehistoric and historical). Defending the idea of a matriarchy that dominated the world from the era of primitive communism to the Neolithic or Bronze Age is not merely correcting a scientific error ; it is also a flag pointing toward the future. This matriarchy meant that women long held somewhat greater power than men, even if it was not state-based power, founded on laws, repressive measures, or the oppression or exploitation of men (males, in short), as patriarchy is founded on the exploitation and oppression of women with the help of the state and for the greater profit of the exploiting class. Under matriarchy, the exploitation of man by man did not yet exist or was barely embryonic due to the limited labor capacity of each human being. The division of labor among human beings was not yet established.

And patriarchy has since dominated almost everywhere to this day, except where social revolution has triumphed, such as in the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution of 1917, or the Spanish Revolution of 1936. History has long since demonstrated the link between social revolution and the liberation of women.

How the permanent revolution intends to work towards the liberation of women, and how it plans to use this objective to significantly strengthen the revolution, is the question that must now be explored. The oppression of women is an ancient remnant of the old pre-capitalist systems of oppression that capitalism has adopted and fully exploited for its own benefit. Even when capitalist society was at its peak, it never relinquished this horror. Now that the capitalist system is in its death throes, it feels an even greater need to exacerbate the oppression of women in order to maintain its power over the world.

The best definition of permanent revolution is to say that it is about transforming all forms of oppression and exploitation of the old, rotten society into weapons of the proletariat to definitively overthrow capitalism and imperialism as well as all more ancient forms of oppression such as religious oppression or the patriarchal oppression of women.

Capitalism has chosen patriarchy as a means of domination to ensure the stability of its society of exploitation of proletarian labor. Well, in order to liberate themselves, the latter, who are the main revolutionary force of the old society, must have no fear or reluctance to transform women's aspirations for liberation into weapons of struggle, they must even take the lead in this struggle, they must place this fight at the forefront of their battle banner, they must not even wait for the hour of revolution to proclaim this objective in factories and neighborhoods, to carry it into the unions as well as the committees of the working people, to denounce all the parties and unions that are reluctant to do so or that only pretend to support women's rights and claim that capitalism and its states are working towards gender equality.

We have already shown in articles on the Matière et Révolution website that capitalism is constantly worsening the situation of women around the world :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2545

We have shown that the liberation of women has never come and will never come from the institutions of the bourgeoisie :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2931

We have shown that decaying, abiding capitalism, more antisocial and bloody than ever, is even more incompatible with women's freedom :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7743

We have shown that capitalism and patriarchy reinforce each other and that, in order to end capitalism, we must also end patriarchy :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4397

We have shown that patriarchy is an instrument of war waged by big capital against women and against people :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5352

We have shown that oppressed women and exploited workers can fight together for the overthrow of capitalism :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6903

It remains for us to show how to transform the social horror of the oppression of women into a real bomb that the revolutionary proletariat and rebellious women can throw directly into the mouth of the system of exploitation and oppression that has long dominated the world.

We repeat, the policy of permanent revolution consists of turning the weapons of the capitalist system against itself. The oppression of women must, in the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat, be a weapon aimed directly and violently against the entire system.

And it is first and foremost the objective of the socialist and proletarian revolution that must be clearly established and declared, namely, a return to… matriarchy ! We will be told : “But that would be oppressing men (in the masculine sense) !” Not at all. The old matriarchy was not a system of oppression and exploitation. It did not serve to support a society of oppression and exploitation, since such a society did not yet exist. Primitive communism knew neither private property nor the exploitation of man. And since socialism seeks to challenge these two foundations of the backwardness of current human societies, it is logical to consider returning to the relations between men and women that existed then. This can only frighten the timid and amuse only fools. These people will tell you : “Proletarian men are incapable of it ; there are no more misogynistic men !” "This is where we see how much reformists and opportunists despise the capabilities of the proletariat, as soon as it decides to break in a revolutionary way with the old mess of the world.

It is by affirming this radical objective, the most radical one that exists in this matter, that the proletariat can take the lead in the struggle for women's liberation. And they will not only destroy the patriarchy. They will also affirm that other mortal enemies of women must be definitively eliminated : the standing army of the bourgeoisie, the cause of wars in which women and children are the first victims ; the false, macho, and misogynistic domination that makes women victims of permanent and deadly sexist violence ; and sexual and pedophilic exploitation by completely liberating women and giving them real power.

And we have shown on our website, Matter and Revolution, that the old matriarchy was a system where women held slightly more power than men. But, as the skeptics and moderates will say, "all you have to do is demand equality between men and women." It's clear that these people are primarily afraid of going too far, of being too radical, of having too much trouble convincing others, but they aren't afraid of weakening the proletarian camp in the death war being prepared against capitalism and imperialism. No super-powerful weapon will be superfluous in this fierce struggle that is brewing ! "We'll cut ourselves off from the masses who haven't reached that point yet" is the leitmotif of these people, including those who call themselves revolutionaries, as soon as anyone suggests going to the root of the problem to cut it off radically. They keep saying that "it's going to hurt too much, it's going to be too difficult," like passengers going into space who don't want the rocket's thrust to be too strong so as not to inconvenience the passengers, and who, on the other hand, are not afraid that the rocket will fall back down…

These are the same pseudo-radicals, whether they call themselves far-left or not, who refuse to promote the dictatorship of workers' councils—in short, the soviets ! That would scare away moderate workers (or rather, the working-class elite within the union apparatus) ! They also refuse to advocate for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus : army/police/prisons/gendarmerie/special forces ! Nor do they want to promote the arming of the proletariat… But they also refuse to establish a link between the proletariat and all the oppressed, all the exploited, all the victims of the system (petty bourgeoisie, the poor, women, young people, the unemployed, the homeless, fishermen, farmers, undocumented immigrants, etc.). Here again, the aim is not to alarm the union apparatus that shelters these so-called radicals !

So, you think, proclaiming from the rooftops that we're going back to matriarchy is way too much, even if these people occasionally write that they want to one day put an end to capitalism and therefore build socialism and communism. But that's a long way off… one day…

But matriarchy, even if it's not the direct oppression of men by women, nor their exploitation, is still the primacy of women, their power first. It's unequal, some say. They want "equality."

But then, for our budding radicals, workers' power means more power for the workers than for… others ! That's unequal, isn't it ? In fact, they just want a little more democracy, these famous "radicals".

As Karl Marx said, to be truly radical is to attack evil at its root ! That is why he said he was not only for revolution but for permanent revolution, the kind that never stops digging, deepening, getting to the heart of things, attacking the very core of evil, of the old society and uprooting it completely.

This is what we are going to do with the patriarchy. And this also means uprooting the capitalist army. Uprooting, too, the religions that blame women (in all the Gardens of Eden), that trap women (and men) in an anti-feminine ideological snare. Uprooting bourgeois education, both formal and informal. Uprooting the misogyny and machismo of the media, science, philosophy, art, and so on.

Some radicals are content to see women at the forefront of the uprisings, whether it be the one that began in 2010-2011 in North Africa, the Arab world, and then worldwide, including the beginning of the Yellow Vest movement. But they fail to draw the truly radical conclusions that are necessary. Women will be at the head of the struggle because they suffer a double oppression, both as the exploited and as women. Therefore, they must also have primacy in the society that will be built.

But no, our critics will say, they will have equality. Well, my critics, you will understand that to straighten a stick, you have to bend it in the other direction. That's what happens with the dictatorship of the proletariat, and it's even necessary to take away democratic rights from the former exploiters, the former political or military leaders. You don't go directly from the crooked to the right. You have to, as Hegel would say, go through the negation of the negation to arrive at the affirmation ! Patriarchy negated matriarchy. Matriarchy must negate patriarchy ! And it is the negation of the negation that will liberate both women and men.

Yes, men need to free themselves from their false superiority, from their false needs : to despise, to dominate, to hit, to subdue, to decide alone, to believe themselves superior, to satisfy their sexual and psychological needs at the expense of the other sex, to be attracted to forbidden and forced relationships, all kinds of false needs that the capitalist and patriarchal system, using all modern media and technologies, has implanted in their heads.

The radicalism of these false radicals is limited to a few changes in vocabulary, allowing women to access (verbally) professions that linguistics attributes only to (masculine) men.

This so-called feminist linguistics does not change the reality of women's lives.

And especially not in a phase of society where the ruling class is working to generalize war, fascism, dictatorship, crush revolts, oppress, impoverish, terrorize more than ever, all things of which women are the first victims.

No, bourgeois and petit-bourgeois feminism, which is too timid to even seriously criticize the dominant system and recognize that it is dying, is not enough. It will require a new system, and it won't be established with just… words !

Fundamentally, it will be necessary to destroy the capitalist state (including that of the so-called democracies) and imperialism, and for this, women absolutely need to unite with revolutionary proletarians, and the reverse is also true.

The so-called democracies didn't lift a finger when the revolts around the world were crushed, with women being the first to be targeted. Oh no ! They lifted a finger to support dictatorships. Including in the Arab world. Including in Saudi Arabia. Including in Afghanistan. Including in Iran. Including in Algeria. In the Yellow Vest movement, as in the one in the US, the forces of repression of "democracy" struck first… women !

So, you who fight capitalism, you still don't want to put women first in the future society ?

The IWW and Revolutionary Syndicalism in the USA

Robert Paris — 2026-06-16T09:17:03Z

The IWW and Revolutionary Syndicalism in the USA

“We are adversaries of the existing order ; we are its enemies through and through. We do not respect the flag of the United States. It is a symbol of oppression… It flies over the worst places and carries no message for us. We do not believe in a hierarchy of wages. We propose to abolish the entire wage system and give every man a chance. We do not believe in God. The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the biggest plasphemy in the world because it preaches submission to the current order, promising a better life… in the future.”

IWW, San Diego Union Meeting, April 25, 1912

“We are opposed to the existing order ; we are against it from bottom up. We do not respect the laws or flag of the United States. It is a symbol of oppression ; . . . It floats over the vilest places and has no message for us. We do not believe in the system of wages. We propose to overthrow the whole system and give every man a chance. We do not believe in a God. The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been the greatest curse in the world because it preaches submission to the present order, promising something better in a future life.”

IWW, San Diego Union, April 25, 1912

During the period of rapid industrial development and concentration, the American labor movement also experienced significant growth in the 1870s and 1880s, taking on unique forms. For example, the Knights of Labor, a producers' fraternity—initially secretive for security reasons—reached 700,000 members by the mid-1880s. Open to women and Black people, it advocated for the eight-hour workday, the nationalization of railroads, the abolition of monopolies, and the formation of cooperative enterprises. It brought together skilled and unskilled workers, union members and non-union members alike, as well as artisans and small business owners. Consequently, its leadership rejected class conflict, and after a series of deadly clashes, its influence declined, challenged by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). This organization, led by Samuel Gompers, brought together trade unions, without seeking to unify their actions or to open itself up to unskilled workers and the unemployed, and openly advocated negotiation, compromise and reform.

In various sectors of the American economy, particularly in railroads and mining in the western United States, workers rejected the methods of the AFL and organized themselves based on their industry. From this regrouping emerged the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905, a labor federation founded on industry-based organization. The IWW—later nicknamed the Wobblies—adopted revolutionary syndicalist principles, comparable to those of the Charter of Amiens, and methods of direct action—strikes or sabotage if necessary—rather than negotiation between union leaders and employers. For more than ten years, they spearheaded numerous struggles across the United States.

Committed internationalists, they opposed US participation in World War I and faced deadly repression. Although they still exist, the IWW has since been unable to mobilize a significant number of workers, but their principles—one union for all workers—and the forms they took in their actions have continued to influence social struggles in the United States.

The First World War also served to crush the revolutionary workers' movement in the USA !

In 1912, the IWW, a revolutionary syndicalist organization advocating class struggle, had some 50,000 members, primarily concentrated in the Northwest, among dockworkers, farm laborers in the Midwestern states, and textile and mining regions. The IWW was involved in over 150 strikes, including the Lawrence Textile Strike (1912), the Paterson Silk Strike (1913), and the Mesabi Range Strike (1916). They were also involved in what is known as the Wheatland Hop Riot on August 3, 1913.

Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW's Farm Workers Organization (AWO) brought together hundreds of thousands of seasonal farmworkers throughout the Midwest and Western United States, registering and unionizing them, often in the fields, on the railroads, and in hobo camps.10 During this period, IWW workers were practically indistinguishable from hobos. Since itinerant workers could scarcely afford other means of transportation to reach their next job, covered freight cars, which hobos called "side-door coaches," were frequently plastered with IWW posters. An IWW membership card was considered sufficient for rail travel. Workers often obtained better working conditions through direct action at the workplace, staging sit-down strikes that consciously and collectively slowed down their work. The working conditions of seasonal farm workers saw a huge improvement thanks to Wobbly's unionism.

Building on the success of the AWO, the Lumber Workers Industrial Union (LWIU) used similar methods to organize loggers and other forestry workers in both the Deep South and along the Pacific coast of the Pacific Northwest in the United States and Canada between 1917 and 1924. The IWW lumbermen's strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour workday and greatly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Although mid-century historians credited the U.S. government and "visionary lumber magnates" for these concessions, it was an IWW strike that secured them.

Beginning in 1913, the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union (MWW) proved itself a force to be reckoned with. It competed with the unions of the American Federation of Labor for dominance in the industry. Given its commitment to international solidarity, its efforts and successes in this area were not surprising. Local 8, a branch of the union, was led by Ben Fletcher ; he had recruited primarily African American longshoremen from the docks of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Other leaders included the Swiss immigrant Waler Nef, Jack Walsh, E.F. Doree, and the Spanish seaman Manuel Rey. The IWW was also present on the docks of Boston, New York, New Orleans, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Eureka, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver, as well as in ports in the West Indies, Mexico, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and other nations.

The IWW often struggled to maintain its gains, even where, as in Lawrence, it had won its strikes. In 1912, the IWW rejected collective bargaining agreements and advocated a permanent struggle on the shop floor against the employer. However, sustaining this revolutionary momentum against employers proved difficult. In Lawrence, the IWW lost almost all its members in the years following the strike, as employers gradually undermined the resistance of their employees and eliminated most of the union's most ardent supporters.

Clarice Stasz, Jack London's biographer, notes that he "saw the Wobblies as a beneficial contribution to the socialist cause, although he wasn't radical enough to call for sabotage, for example." She mentions a personal meeting between London and Big Bill Haywood in 1912.

The effectiveness of the IWW's nonviolent tactics provoked a violent reaction from the government, business circles, and groups of "citizens." In 1914, Joe Hill (Joel Hägglund) was accused of murder and, despite only circumstantial evidence, was executed by the state of Utah in 1915. On November 5, 1916, in Everett, a group of businessmen, appointed as sheriffs and led by Sheriff Donald McRae, attacked union members on the ocean liner Verona, killing at least five (six others were never found and likely disappeared in Puget Sound). Two members of the gang were killed, and although the exact circumstances remain unknown, it is believed that the two deputies were hit by friendly fire.

Many IWW members opposed US participation in the First World War. The organization passed a resolution against the war at its November 1916 convention. This echoes the view expressed at the IWW's founding convention that war is a struggle among capitalists, in which the rich get richer, and where the poor often die at the hands of other workers.

The IWW's daily newspaper, the Industrial Worker, wrote just before the United States entered the war : "Capitalists of America, we will fight against you, not for you ! There is no force in the world that can force the working class to fight if it does not want to." Yet, when the declaration of war was passed by the U.S. Congress in April 1917, Bill Haywood, general secretary and treasurer of the IWW, became firmly convinced that the organization should adopt a low profile to avoid the perceived threats to its existence. It ceased all anti-war activity, such as printing anti-war posters and documents. Anti-war propaganda was no longer part of the union's official policy. After much debate in the IWW General Executive, with Haywood advocating a low profile while Frank Little supported continued agitation, Ralph Chaplin found a compromise. The resulting declaration denounced the war, but IWW members were encouraged to express their opposition through legal conscription procedures. They were advised to register, indicating their request for exemption by writing "IWW, opposed to the war."

Although the IWW moderated its verbal opposition, the mainstream press and the American government succeeded in turning public opinion against it. Frank Little, the IWW's most virulent opponent of the war, was lynched in Butte, Montana, in August 1917, just four months after the declaration of war.

The government seized the opportunity presented by the First World War to break up the IWW. In September 1917, agents from the Department of Justice conducted simultaneous raids on 48 IWW meeting places across the country. Also in 1917, 165 union leaders were arrested for conspiracy to obstruct conscription, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in labor disputes, under the Espionage Act ; 101 were tried before Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1918. All were convicted—even those who had not been union members for years—and received prison sentences of up to 20 years. Sentenced to prison but released on bail, Haywood fled to the Soviet Union, where he remained until his death.

In his book "The Land That Time Forgot," published in 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs portrayed a member of the IWW as a particularly despicable traitor and scoundrel. This wave of denigration led to vigilante groups attacking the IWW in many places. In Centralia on November 11, 1919, Wesley Everest, a union member and veteran, was handed over to a mob by jail guards. He first had his teeth broken with a rifle butt, then was castrated and lynched three times in three different locations, and finally his body was riddled with bullets before being buried in an unmarked grave. The official coroner's report attributed the death to "suicide."

After the war, repression continued. IWW members were prosecuted for violating various federal and state laws, and the Palmer Raids of 1920 targeted foreign-born members of the organization. By the mid-1920s, membership had already declined due to government repression, a decline that increased substantially during the 1924 schism, caused by internal disputes when the union split between "Westerners" and "Easterners" over a number of issues, such as the role of the general administration (often simplistically portrayed as a struggle between "centralizers" and "decentralizers") and attempts by the Communist Party to control the organization through infiltration.

https://iwwjoehill-net.translate.goog/Troubadour-de-la-revolte.html?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

https://bataillesocialiste-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2014/04/24/une-page-dhistoire-les-i-w-w-americains/?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

https://www-marxists-org.translate.goog/history/usa/unions/iww/?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

The revolutionary syndicalist movement of the IWW, as reported by Daniel Guérin in "The Labor Movement in the United States (1867-1967)

On June 27, 1905, two hundred activists met in Chicago to form what they decided to call "The Industrial Workers of the World"

They claimed to be creating a new central trade union in opposition to the old AFL—which they punningly called the "Separation of Labor" (instead of Federation of Labor). They vehemently denounced the trade unionism of the trades, the business world, and class collaboration, contrasting it with a vision of industrial unionism based on worker solidarity and class struggle. They aimed to organize those whom the AFL had neglected : the unskilled workers, whose numbers were constantly increasing due to the development of machinery and whom they rightly considered the "granite foundation of the working class."

The founders of the IWW dominated Gompers by a hundred cubits. The manifesto launched by the activists who had taken the initiative to convene the founding congress, Haywood's interventions at this assembly, the speeches given by Debs in a series of propaganda meetings in favor of the new organization, the pamphlet in which Daniel De Leon commented on the IWW program, all these texts still shine today with a brilliance that time has not tarnished.

Gomperism, however, materially survived the indictment leveled against it. It survived, for a time, and only by making concessions, willingly or unwillingly, to the ideas of its adversary. But its historical condemnation dates from 1905.

“The division of trades,” declared the Manifesto of 1905, “prevents the development of class consciousness among workers, engenders the idea of a harmony of interests between the exploiting employer and the wage slave (…). The universal economic evils afflicting the working class can be eradicated only by a universal workers' movement. Such a movement of the working class is impossible as long as separate trade and wage agreements favor the employer against other trades in the same industry, and as long as energies are wasted in sterile jurisdictional struggles that serve only to increase the personal power of the union leaders. A movement fulfilling these conditions must consist of a single great industrial union encompassing the whole of industry (…). It must be based on the class struggle, and its general administration must be conducted in harmony with the recognition of the irrepressible conflict between the capitalist class and the working class.”

But while the founders of the IWW were armed with a powerful idea, the means at their disposal to put it into practice were inadequate. The founding congress was composed mainly of individuals representing only themselves or only a small portion of the organizations to which they belonged and which had not delegated them.

The only mass organization to join the IWW was the Western Federation of Miners, with its 27,000 members, and its satellite, the American Labor Union, with 16,500 members. But very quickly, as early as 1906, the Western miners decided to regain their independence. They were disheartened by the factional disputes that had erupted early on within the IWW. The organization, instead of becoming the new labor federation they envisioned, was becoming a battleground where rival sects and individuals clashed. In this environment where they constituted the only mass organization, they felt out of place and left.

Furthermore, the Western Federation was beginning a transformation that would ultimately lead it back to the AFL and diminish its activism… This departure was a severe blow to the IWW. The Western Federation was their backbone, as well as their main source of funding.

The initial weakness of the IWW was that, at first, they failed to attract any mass unions other than the Western Federation of Miners. The absence, in particular, of the Federation of Coal Miners was an irreparable handicap. The founders of the new unionism were right in believing that the AFL was not capable of reforming itself and that the initiative had to come from outside. But perhaps the IWW underestimated the possibilities for reform from within. For example, the creation, in 1898, of a Teamsters (truckers) federation within the AFL had instilled a new spirit into the old organization. The Teamsters possessed a sense of worker solidarity that the old craft unions rarely demonstrated.

After the departure of the Western Federation of Miners, which was finalized in 1907, one might have thought that what remained of the IWW would quickly disintegrate amidst sectarian squabbles. In 1908, a split divided the IWW in two : Daniel De Leon and his followers created an authoritarian branch of the IWW, headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, while William Haywood (who, in the meantime, had relinquished his leadership of the Western Federation of Miners) took the helm of a group known as the Chicago branch. On one side were the "political" and "doctrinaire" factions ; on the other, the "anarcho-syndicalists" and "wobblies," proponents of "direct action" alone. (Wobbly literally means : rolling or swaying irregularly from side to side. It seems the nickname was invented by the bourgeois press to ridicule the IWW, who, on the contrary, took pride in it.)

And yet, it was only after these successive splits that the IWW, under Haywood's leadership, truly entered the social struggles in the United States. It was no longer, as in the original model, a vast union federation intended to defeat the AFL, but an active minority, a kind of mobile force ready to move immediately to any point on the battlefield and take the lead in the struggles undertaken by the workers. Thus, while the IWW did not accomplish the grand mission it had originally intended to undertake, it nevertheless rendered an important service to the American working class. Faced with the shortcomings of Gomperism, it was the only organization to intervene in the labor struggles of the unskilled.

Initially, the IWW had taken the easy route : they paid little attention to the unorganized and turned their attention to disaffected union members, attempting to detach a number of trade union branches from the AFL. In the more advanced centers of the East, such as New York and Chicago, they achieved some results. In Shenectady, New York, a General Electric stronghold and AFL bastion, they managed to launch a sit-down strike at the end of 1906, one of the first of its kind in the United States. But these attempts didn't get them very far. Therefore, they decided to leave the trade federations alone and devote their efforts to organizing unskilled workers. They turned, in particular, to migrant farmworkers and lumberjacks in the West, predisposed by their isolation and instability to a libertarian revolt : recourse to direct economic action, contempt for all political activity, and an inability to form any permanent organization. These wanderers, known in America as hobos, joined the IWW en masse and helped secure the victory of Haywood's anarcho-syndicalist faction over the authoritarian faction represented by Daniel De Leon. At the 1908 convention, the "Western Brigade" alone constituted half of the delegates.

To meet the needs of migrant workers and take into account their specific circumstances, the IWW devised a new tactic : free speech fights. Using public squares was the only way to spread propaganda and recruit among dispersed and isolated workers who periodically gathered in towns around employment offices, searching for new jobs. Street speakers were thrown in jail ; others immediately replaced them. Mobile squads of IWW members rushed in from outside and were arrested in turn. These free speech fights shook the entire West between 1909 and 1911.

In 1910, the IWW attacked the organization of loggers in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. These loggers were neither immigrants nor migrants, but old-school Americans, primitive and violent. Suddenly transformed into wage laborers and harshly exploited, they were receptive to the IWW's arguments. The strike they launched was one of the most violent in the annals of the American labor movement. But it failed, and the union that the IWW had helped organize was crushed.

In 1912, the IWW turned eastward and set its sights on the textile workers. The 25,000 unorganized workers at the American Woolen Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts, went on strike to protest starvation wages. They were mostly recent immigrants from 28 different nationalities, with Italians predominating. One of the IWW leaders, Joseph Ettor, took charge of the strike and led it with a firm hand.

The small town was placed under siege and Ettor arrested. Haywood replaced him. A procession of 10,000 to 15,000 strikers gave him a triumphant welcome. He implemented bold innovations. Assisted by a valuable activist, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, he organized European-style solidarity, directing the strikers' children to the homes of friends and sympathizers in other towns. He involved women in the struggle, and they fought like lions. He established continuous pickets around the factories, composed of thousands of workers. He successfully drew public attention to the strikers' cause. He secured support from the press. A committee of inquiry was formed in Washington, and a delegation of sixteen children, boys and girls under the age of sixteen, traveled to the nation's capital to describe the terrible living conditions in Lawrence. One of these children called Samuel Gompers, who had come to testify against the strike, a liar.

The employers eventually gave in. Upon hearing of their victory, the workers (a very rare occurrence in the United States) sang the Internationale in all languages. The impact of this event was immense and extended far beyond Lawrence. As a result, 25,000 workers obtained a wage increase.

Another strike broke out in early 1913 in the silk industry in Paterson, New Jersey. It spread into a general solidarity strike. Haywood took the lead in the movement. A procession of 35,000 workers of all nationalities marched to a meeting to hear him speak. He was arrested ; when the AFL organized its own meeting, the workers boycotted it in protest against the refusal to allow the IWW leaders to speak.

Haywood, a master of publicity, brought 1,200 strikers to New York, where they marched through the streets. A large rally was held in Madison Square Garden, illuminated by a gigantic transparent screen bearing the three letters "IWW" in red. The strikers themselves described their living conditions in Paterson, sang songs they had composed, and performed a play recounting the events of their struggle. The press ran extensive reports. Haywood, ever innovative, organized meetings for the strikers' children, helped them form a strike committee, and fostered their class consciousness by telling them the fascinating story of a city of children, without adults, police, prisons, banks, or bosses. Despite all these efforts, the struggle ended in failure.

The textile workers' uprising made a powerful impression on the workers in mass-production industries, whose organization had been completely neglected by the AFL. In 1913, in Akron, Ohio, the rubber capital, the unorganized workers of the large tire factories spontaneously rose up. The IWW took the lead in the movement. Soon, 20,000 rubber workers were on strike. The indefatigable Haywood rushed to the scene. Aided by James P. Cannon, the future Trotskyist leader, he organized mass pickets, as he had in Lawrence. Here, the AFL's union of unions supported the movement and considered calling a general strike. But ultimately, the movement failed. One of the causes of this defeat was the hostile attitude of William Green of the Miners' Federation, Gompers' future successor as head of the AFL. Then a senator from Ohio and chairman of a legislative inquiry committee, he denounced the IWW leaders, calling them "outside agitators".

Similarly, in Detroit, Michigan, another stronghold of the new big industry, the Wobblies launched a strike at the Studebaker plant during the summer of 1913. Eight thousand workers, all unorganized, walked off the job for a week. They displayed remarkable cohesion, but the movement missed its mark. Almost simultaneously, the IWW organizers focused their efforts on the Ford plants, flooding them with newspapers and leaflets, while orators addressed the workers at the factory gates. Rumors spread that the Wobblies were planning a strike at Ford for the summer of 1914. It was then that Ford, feeling threatened, launched its "high wages" policy.

Three years later, in 1916, the miners of Minnesota's Mesaba Iron Range, who extracted the raw material needed for the steel mills of Pittsburgh and Chicago, revolted in turn. These recent immigrants, mostly of Finnish origin, were looking for leadership. The IWW answered their call. Joseph Ettor and Elisabeth Gurley Flynn went to the site. The strike became general and encompassed 16,000 miners. Finally, U.S. Steel granted a 10% wage increase, an eight-hour workday, and improved working conditions.

However, after 1914, the IWW again directed the bulk of its efforts westward. Despite their successes in the East, they had failed to establish a permanent organization there, and the prevailing economic crisis diminished the militancy of unskilled workers in the industrial regions of the Atlantic coast. In 1915–1916, they undertook to organize farmworkers, particularly in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Minnesota. They succeeded in unionizing 18,000 migrant workers. Then they turned their attention to the loggers of the Northwest and the copper miners of Arizona.

In 1917, the IWW reached its peak, at least in terms of membership. In one year, they had grown from 40,000 to 100,000. But the United States' entry into the war unleashed a fierce crackdown against them. All the combined forces of capitalism, the government, and veterans were employed to crush them. Samuel Gompers, happy to finally be rid of a troublesome rival, gave President Wilson free rein. Thousands of Wobblies were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. The movement was effectively decapitated. It never recovered.
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION

Daniel DeLeon

The Daily People

June 27, 1905

(Note : This article refers to the 1905 industrial unionists' convention which established the Industrial Workers of the World. — Also, the phrase “the Krag-Jorgensen policy of settling the Labor question” refers to the use of military force to suppress the workers. The Krag-Jorgensen was a rifle that was used by the US Army and National Guard. ”ML)

Frederick Engels, next to Karl Marx the greatest Socialist philosopher, reiterates in his great work, “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,” the old Greek philosophy first clearly enunciated by Heraclitus, who said, “Everything is and yet is not, for everything flows, is in constant motion, is in constant process of formation and dissolution.” In other words, life is not a fixed but an ever changing and growing phenomenon. In no phase of life is this philosophy so applicable in its general characteristics as in the economic and social spheres of man. There integration and disintegration are constant and incessant.
Today, a large portion of the working class of this country is turning its gaze in the direction of Chicago. In the Great Lakes city of the West there opens today a convention of workingmen, which, judging from the manifesto calling it, is destined to mark an important change in the history of labor in this country. This convention promises to launch an economic organization of the working class on the lines of the conflicting interests of capital and labor, in direct contradistinction to the prevailing organization, that is based on the principle of the mutual interests of capital and labor. Such an organization necessarily demands integration and disintegration. It necessarily ignores those who regard the present form of trade unionism as fixed and stable, and proceeds to build up in conformity with sound principles, philosophical as well as economic.

That such promises as those of the Chicago manifesto have been held out before and have ended in comparative failure—that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance and the American Labor Union, for instance, have attempted the same thing with a measure of success less than that confidently expected—is no valid reason for discrediting such promises, or not aiding in the work that would fulfill them - integration and disintegration are processes that must often be accompanied by failure and experimentation in order to be finally successful. The fact that the efforts to launch a classconscious organization of labor are achieving a certain cumulative force, despite their comparative failures, argues well for their final triumph.

Another fact, worthy of consideration, is the more favorable condition of affairs in which the new organization will be launched.

First, it is backed by a large number of weekly and monthly papers, free from the throttling influences of capitalist trade unionism that never supported such a movement before. Headed by the DAILY and WEEKLY PEOPLE, and the Swedish, Jewish, German, Hungarian and Italian organs of the Socialist Labor Party, it has a press that wields a wide influence and can do much constructive as well as destructive, much defensive as well as offensive, work in its behalf. Again, the growth of Socialist sentiment and revolutionary Socialism are factors that cannot be ignored. They possess a power for good in combating the fallacious and treacherous workings of capitalist unionism, that was not so conspicuously present in the past attempts of the kind promised by the Chicago manifesto. With them present, capitalist reasoning and calumny no longer possess the field undisturbed, but are confronted by opponents whose increasing strength threatens them with overwhelming disaster.

Finally, the new movement has the existing disgust against the treachery and futility of Gompersism, combined with its disintegrating tendencies, to help it. The working class look from Frisco to Fall River. They note mutual scabbery, snatchry and defeat everywhere. They note the National Civic Federation and its malignant influence in their affairs, as exemplified in the subway strike. They are, accordingly, alive to Gompersism's impotency and treachery. Moreover, and above all, they note the organic changes in the system of capitalism itself, and the corresponding fallacy of the Gompers unionism. Hence, they are leaving the latter and are turning toward classconscious unionism, with all that implies. When were the promises of such unionism ever more favorable and worthy of support ? Never before in the history of the American labor movement.

It is to be hoped that the Chicago convention is alive to these facts, and will improve upon them. A step backward from the manifesto would be deplorable, while conditions justify many steps forward. The mere declaration of Industrial Unionism will not suffice without the determination to make classconsciousness the essence of the new movement.

Some sapient “Socialists” proclaim the International Typographical Union an Industrial Union, because it includes in its ranks many branches of the printing industry. The fact that these are the better paid branches, who use the inferior branches to raise their own salaries exclusively, a was done in the Brooklyn Eagle strike, doesn't affect the thinking apparatus of these wiseacres any. Nor does the International Typographical Union's endorsement of the Krag-Jorgensen policy of settling the Labor question, have the slightest impression upon their “wisdom.” They, now as always, are pleased with the form, for the essence is beyond them. Save us from such “industrial unionism.” It is the old poisonous adulteration with a new label !

If the Chicago convention measures up to its duty and answers labor's prayer for relief, it will progress as it deserves. Otherwise retrogression will be its lot, while integration and disintegration will continue in the world of labor as of yore.
Max Eastman 1921

Bill Haywood, Communist

The title of this article will be interesting news to those who have always loved the IWW, and felt that it is the only real contribution America has made to political history since 1789. We have been a little saddened of late years to see the rigidity and lethargy of age creeping over the IWW It seems as though all organizations which do not achieve within ten or fifteen years the purpose for which they are formed begin to be more interested in themselves than they are in their purpose. That instinctive gregarious loyalty which made them possible in the beginning makes them stiff and complacent and useless in the end. Have a split and start a new organization every ten years, might almost be a universal rule — a 22nd point — for the guidance of revolutionary movements. And it seemed as though even the IWW were not going to escape the application of this rule.
But something is happening. The long arm of the Moscow engineers is active in Chicago. Tired, discouraged, jail-worn and work-worn editors and organizers are talking about a new subject with a new enthusiasm — an enthusiasm that Bill Haywood describes as “quiet and warm.” The subject they are talking about is an endorsement of the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions, affiliation with it, and the resolute fulfillment of its purposes in this country.
“I would like to see a unanimous vote for affiliation on the part of the IWW,” Bill Haywood said to me. “I only want to live to see the dream of the Red Labor International come true. That's all I want. That's the IWW”

He had in his pocket a leaflet written by an English delegate to the Council, JT Murphy. In that he showed me a footnote stating that the delegates had voted to draft an appeal to the IWW, and to other organizations of syndicalist tendency which had not yet declared for affiliation.

“That got me,” he said. “To think of the workers of several nations, including one nation of a hundred and eighty million, causing the draft of an appeal to the IWW ! That shows what has happened to the world. I don't have to wait for their appeal. I've read their plans and their instructions, and I know this is something at last that we can work with. They are carrying out the original aims and purposes of the IWW, and you can say for me that I think every genuine labor union in the United States ought to affiliate with the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions with its central bureau at Moscow.”
I asked him whether he though the IWW would affiliate with it at their convention in May, and he said, “I have not heard a word in opposition.”

Bill Haywood is not the IWW, of course, and he is not at present in a position to speak for its executive policies. But he represents, more than any other one man could, the memory and momentum of it. He was the chairman of the first conference that considered his training, and the chairman of the first convention when it was called. He has never been absent from his counsels except when he was in jail. And even when the executive work was in other hands, he always stood out in the public storm as the head of the IWW. He has stood out in the storm with something of the impassive grandeur of a monument. Slow-moving, but powerfully self-possessed and intelligent, Bill Haywood occupies a position of real influence in America among those who are not foolish enough to believe the newspapers. And I imagine that this present change, or development, of his judgment about the tactics of the revolution, is an indication, not only that the IWW is going to swing again into its place in advance of the front line, but that American industrial unionists in general are going to accept the larger political philosophy of Communism.

Bill Haywood is no more friendly to the idea of political campaigning, or what is called “parliamentary action,” than he ever was — not a bit. But he fully accepts the necessity of a genuinely revolutionary party forming the vanguard of the movement of the revolution.

“I feel as if I'd always been there,” he said to me. “You remember that I used to say that all we needed were fifty thousand real IWWs, and then about a million members to back them up ? Well, isn't that a similar idea ? At least I always realized that the essential thing was to have an organization of those who know. Don't call them leaders. I call them engineers.”

I did remember Bill Haywood's remark about the fifty thousand IWWs. I remember what a wild idea it seemed to me at the time. But I also remembered that in those days his fifty thousand engineers were to be pure industrial unionists, and he seemed to conceive the whole movement then as essentially a fight for the shops. I asked him what had produced the change.

“It is simply because they have done wonderful things over there that we have been dreaming about doing over here,” he said. “It is the fact, the example, that has caused any change in me that may seem contradictory. And even now I would hesitate to confirm such a movement if everything that emanated from Moscow did not show that they want to put the workers in control, and eventually eliminate the state.”

Here Bill Haywood delivered a short eulogy of the Bolshevik revolution, and what he said would astonish a great many people who know him only as the terrible bad Man of America with one eye and a great big Black hat.

“Max,” he said, clenching one of his exceedingly small hands in a gesture firm but not very ferocious, “to say nothing of the expropriation of industry, the thing of greatest importance, they've already accomplished three other things over there, any one of which would justify such a revolution there, or here, or anywhere else. Shall I tell you what they are ?

“The first is the education of the children. I Russia every child gets food and clothing and books and amusement and a real education. And, by God, for that one thing alone I'd favor a revolution in this country !

“And the second is the relief that has been given to women in motherhood. In this country we do it for thoroughbred horses and pedigreed cattle. In Russia every woman is supported for eight weeks after confinement. That is the work of Alexandra Kollontay — a good friend of mine — and that again is enough all by itself to justify a revolution.

“The third thing is the transfer of land to the peasants. The peasants have control of the land, and of course that is a more fundamental thing.”

I asked him for the reason why American labor is so much behind the labor movements of Europe in following the lead of the Russians, and he said, “The principal reason is the AF of L.”

“Do you think it is possible for the revolutionists to capture the AF of L.?” I asked.

“Some parts of it,” he answered. “Only I would not say capture them, I would say educate them.”

I asked him what parts he referred to, and he said after a moment of hesitation :

“The United Mine workers. That is already an industrial union, and it is the body of the AF of L. the craft unions are its arms and tentacles. The craft unions are what enable the AF of L. to strangle any germs of life or inspiration that may come to American labor.

“To the general way of thinking it is the official bureaucracy that is responsible for this. It isn't. It is the craft unions with their high initiation fees, and their policies of excluding the unskilled workers, and even excluding skilled workers who have not served a long conventional apprenticeship. A further thing that outsiders do not understand about these unions is that they are absolutely controlled by the Lodges — Masons, Moose. Knights of Columbus and so forth — working through organized groups within them. It is these Lodges that elect their officials and direct their policies, and it is from these groups within them rather than from the unions themselves that the workers receive what benefits they do receive.

“But if you say that the United Mine Workers are the body of the AF of L.,” I said, “and that it is possible to bring the United Mine Workers to a revolutionary attitude, isn't that practically saying that it is possible for the revolutionists to capture the AF of L.”

Bill Haywood's answer to this question was immediate and brief. “if the United Mine Workers do anything,” he said, “then the AF of L. is no more.”

“Do you mean,” I asked, “that the organization would transform itself into something entirely new, or that the United Mine Workers would withdraw and leave nothing ?”

He smiled at my word, transformation. “I don't know what kind of a bug it would germinate into. It certainly wouldn't be a butterfly that would come out of that chrysalis.”

“No,” he continued, “you don't realize what the AF of L. is. The AF of L. is nothing but an executive Board, receiving a small per capita tax from a large membership — a tax sufficient to maintain their office, and pay their salaries, and keep up a lobby at Washington — an executive Board that in thirty-nine years of its existence has never done a single thing fro the American working-class.

“That is what the AF of L. is. And if the unions that form the body of that membership acquire a revolutionary understanding the AF of L. will cease to exist. That is the only answer there is to this question.”
“Do you believe,” I asked, “that in such a case the United Mine Workers would associate themselves with the IWW ?”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “If the United Mine Workers become revolutionary and don't want to become part of the IWW, the IWW can become a part of them, or whatever they form.”

It was that statement — which like practically all the statements in the interview, is quoted verbatim — that made me feel most vividly the magnanimous practicalness of mature communism in Bill Haywood's attitude.

“The IWW reached out and grabbed an armful,” he said. “It tried to grab the whole world, and a part of the world has jumped ahead of it.”

Read in English upon the IWW

1917
The Communist International to the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World)

January 1920

Comrades and fellow workers,

The Executive Committee of the Communist International, meeting in Moscow, at the heart of the Russian Revolution, hails the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as the revolutionary proletariat of America.
Capitalism, ruined by the world war, no longer able to contain the immense forces it has created, is in decline.
The hour of the working class has struck. The social revolution has begun, and its first vanguard battle has been fought in Russia.
History has not asked us whether we wanted it or not, whether we were ready or not. The opportunity is before us. Let us seize it, and the world will belong to the workers ; let it pass, and entire generations will perish before it arises again.
It is no longer time to speak of "building the new society within the framework of the old." The old society is breaking free from its shell. It is up to the workers to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, which alone can build the new society.

An article published by your official organ, One Big Union Monthly, asked : "Why must we follow the Bolsheviks ?" The author believed that the Bolshevik revolution had "given the Russian people only the right to vote."

This is, of course, false. The Bolshevik Revolution dispossessed the capitalists of factories, mills, mines, land, and financial institutions, and transferred everything to the working class.
We understand and share your disgust with the principles and tactics of the "yellow" politicians who have discredited the very term "socialism" worldwide. Our goal is the same as yours : a community without a state, without a government, without classes, in which the workers will manage production and distribution for the benefit of all.

We send you this message, fellow workers of the International Workingmen's Association (IWW), as a token of our appreciation for the heroic part you have been playing for so long in the class struggle that you have brought about in your country, and to make you well acquainted with our communist principles and our program.

We invite you, revolutionaries, to rally to the Communist International, born at the dawn of the universal social revolution.

We invite you to take the place to which your courage and revolutionary experience entitle you, in the front rank of the proletarian Red Army fighting under the banner of communism.

Communism and the IWW

The American capitalist class is revealing its true colors.
The rising cost of living, the ever-increasing unemployment, the ruthless suppression of all efforts by workers to improve their condition, the deportation and imprisonment of "Bolsheviks," the laws against strikes, against "criminal unionism," against the "red flag," against all propaganda in favor of the "violent overthrow of the government and attacks on property"—all these laws and measures can have only one meaning in the eyes of the conscious worker.
Industrial slavery is as old as capitalism ; and workers have known other forms of slavery before it.
But now the capitalists of the world—Americans as well as French, Italians, English, Germans, etc.—are intent on reducing workers definitively to absolute and inescapable servitude.

There is no alternative : either this servitude, or the dictatorship of the working class. And the workers must choose now.
Capitalism is making desperate efforts to rebuild its crumbling edifice. The workers must, through a coup, seize the state and rebuild society according to their interests.

The new slavery

Before the Civil War, Black slaves in the Southern states were bound to the land. Northern industrial capitalists, who needed a floating workforce to supply their factories, proclaimed slavery an offense against humanity and abolished it by force. Now, industrial capitalists are trying to bind workers to their factories.
During the war, and in every country, workers practically lost their right to strike and even their right to stop work. Remember the laws that prevailed in your own country : work or fight !

And since the war ended, what have we seen ? The cost of living has risen steadily, while capitalists have striven to reduce wages. And when workers are driven to strike by hunger, all the forces of the state are mobilized against them to force them back to work. When railroad workers stopped work in California, they were threatened with the deployment of federal troops. When the Railroad Engineers' Union demanded a wage increase or the nationalization of the railroads, the President of the United States threatened it with the full force of armed repression. When American miners left their pits, thousands of soldiers occupied the mines, and the Federal Court adopted the most cynical measures against the strike, forbidding leaders from ordering a work stoppage and prohibiting the payment of relief to strikers. The United States Attorney General finally declared officially that the government would not tolerate strikes in industries "necessary to the community."
Judge Garry, who headed the steel trust, could refuse the President's request to negotiate with a workers' committee. But when the steelworkers went on strike, demanding a living wage and the basic right to unionize, they were branded Bolsheviks and shot in the ensuing riots by Pennsylvania Cossacks.

And you, IWW comrades, you who keep the bitter memories of Everett, Tulsa, Wheatland, Centralia, where your comrades were massacred ; you whose thousands of brothers are in jails, you who nevertheless perform the hardest labor in the fields, in the docks, in the forests, you must clearly distinguish the process by which capitalists attempt, using their tried and tested weapon, the State, to institute a society of slaves.

The capitalists' cry, "Produce more ! Produce even more !" resounds from all sides. In other words, workers must provide more labor for less pay, so that their sweat and blood, now monetized, can serve to pay off the war debts of the devastated capitalist world.

For this to happen, workers must be deprived of the right to leave their jobs ; they must be prevented from organizing to extract concessions from employers or to benefit from competition among them. The workers' movement must be stopped and crushed at all costs.

To save the old system of exploitation, capitalists must unite and chain the worker to the machine.

The social revolution

Will the capitalists succeed ?

They will succeed unless the workers declare war on the entire capitalist system, overthrow capitalist governments and replace them with a working-class government which must destroy capitalist private property and institute common ownership of all wealth.

This is what the Russian workers did, and it is the only way for workers in other countries to free themselves from industrial servitude and to organize the world so that the worker benefits fully from the product of their labor and no one can exploit the labor of another.
But if the workers in other countries do not rise up against their own capitalists, the Russian revolution cannot survive. Capitalists throughout the world, understanding the danger posed by the example of Soviet Russia, have joined forces to destroy it. The Allies, momentarily forgetting their hatred of Germany, have invited German capitalists to join them in the common interest.
And the workers in other countries are beginning to understand. In Italy, Germany, France, and England, the tide of revolution is rising. In America, even the most conservative members of the American Federation of Labor are realizing that strikes for wage increases and better living conditions are, in reality, meaningless, as the cost of living continues to rise. They proposed all sorts of remedies to this situation, reforms of the "Plumb Plan", nationalization of the mines, etc. They founded a so-called Labor Party which aimed to achieve municipal or government ownership of industry, a more democratic electoral mechanism, etc.

But even if these reforms were implemented, they wouldn't solve the problem. As long as the capitalist system exists, people will profit from the labor of others. All the reforms of the current system only deceive the worker into believing they are being robbed a little less than before.

The social revolution has begun, and its first battle is raging in Russia. It leaves the workers no time to experiment with reforms. The capitalists have already destroyed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. If they succeed in suppressing and breaking the workers' movement in other countries, industrial slavery will be established.

Before it is too late, conscious workers must prepare to repel the assault of capitalism, and in turn take the offensive to defeat it and eradicate it from the world.

The Capitalist State

The war and its consequences revealed with striking clarity the real functions of the capitalist state — its laws, its courts, its police, its armies, its bureaucracy.

The state serves to defend and consolidate capitalist power and to oppress workers. This is especially true in the United States, whose constitution was designed by merchants, speculators, and landowners to protect their class interests against the majority of the people.

As for the present, the United States government is obviously just a weapon of the capitalists against the workers.

The IWW must understand this better than anyone, having been rageously persecuted by the government, having seen their leaders imprisoned, their newspapers suppressed, their members deported or imprisoned on fabricated charges, their bail denied, their prisoners tortured, held incommunicado, their premises closed, their propaganda reduced in some states to becoming clandestine.

The workers see this. The people elect governors, mayors, judges, sheriffs ; but in times of strike, the governor summons the militia to defend the foxes ; the mayor orders the police to beat and arrest the militants in the streets ; the judge charges them with "disturbing the peace," labels them "rioters," and imprisons them ; and the sheriff pays thugs he sends out as strikebreakers...

The whole of capitalist society presents a united front to the workers.

The priest told him to resign himself ; the press cursed him and called him a "Bolshevik" ; the police arrested him ; the court condemned him ; the sheriff seized him for debts, and the poorhouse took in his wife and children.

To destroy capitalism, the proletariat must first wrest political power from the capitalists. They must not merely seize it ; they must abolish the old capitalist system entirely.

For the experience of revolutions has shown that workers cannot seize the state and use it—as the yellow socialists claim. The capitalist state is built to serve capitalism ; it can do nothing else.

In place of the capitalist state, the workers must build their own state, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dictatorship of the proletariat

Many members of the IWW refuse to agree. They are opposed to "any state, in general." They propose to overthrow the capitalist state and immediately establish Industrial Commonwealth.
The Communists are also enemies of the state. They too want to abolish it and replace the government of men with the administration of things.

Unfortunately, this cannot be done immediately. The destruction of the capitalist state does not mean that capitalism disappears automatically and instantly. Capitalists have other weapons that must be wrested from them ; they are still defended by legions of good employees, administrators, managers, and shrewd businessmen who will sabotage industry—and who must be persuaded or forced to serve the working class ; they have officers who can betray the revolution, priests who can stir up old superstitions against it, professors and orators who can distort it in the eyes of the ignorant, scoundrels who can be paid to discredit it, newspapers that can deceive the people with constant lies, yellow socialists, and so-called laborers who prefer capitalist democracy to revolution. Their efforts must be severely repressed.

To tear down the edifice of the capitalist state, to break the resistance of the capitalist class and disarm it, to confiscate its property and transfer it to the community of workers—these tasks require a government, a state, the dictatorship of the proletariat by means of which the proletarians can, with an iron hand, break the enemy class.

This is what is currently happening in Russia.

But the dictatorship of the proletariat is only temporary. We communists also want the abolition of the state. The state can only last as long as the class war continues. The function of the dictatorship of the proletariat is to abolish the capitalist class as a class ; in fact, to eliminate all class distinctions. Once this goal is achieved, the dictatorship of the proletariat will automatically disappear, giving way to an industrial administration, likely analogous to the General Executive Bureau of the IWW.

In a recent article, Mary Marcy writes that without theoretically recognizing the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the IWW will be forced to admit it in fact in times of revolution, in order to defeat the counter-revolution.

That is true. But if the IWW refuses to recognize in advance the necessity of the workers' state, confusion and weakness are likely to prevail in its ranks at times when firmness and speed of action will be imperatively required.

The Workers' State

What form will the Workers' State take ?

We have before us the example of the Russian Soviet Republic, whose structure, too often distorted abroad by contradictory information, it may be useful to point out here.

The unit of government is the local Soviet or Council of Workers', Red Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.

In the cities, the Soviet is elected as follows : each factory elects one delegate for a certain number of workers, and each local trade union elects a certain number of others. These delegates are elected from lists of political parties or individually, at the workers' discretion.

The deputies of the Red Army are elected by their units.

In the countryside, each village has its Soviet, which sends delegates to the Soviets in the towns. These towns, in turn, elect the District Soviet. These, in turn, form the Provincial Soviet.
Anyone who exploits the labor of others is ineligible to vote.

Every six months, the Soviets of cities and provinces elect delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the supreme authority in the country. The Congress decides on the main political measures for a six-month period and chooses the two hundred members of the Central Executive Committee, responsible for implementing the measures enacted by the Congress. The Congress also elects a Cabinet—the People's Commissars.

The mandates of these officials are revocable at any time by the Central Executive Committee. Members of the Soviets can likewise be recalled by their constituents.

These Soviets are not only legislative bodies but also executive bodies. Unlike the American Congress, they do not simply draft laws that the President is then responsible for promulgating and implementing ; and there is no supreme court tasked with deciding whether the adopted measure is "constitutional" or not.

In the intervals between meetings of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, supreme power in Russia rests with the Central Executive Committee. This committee meets at least every two months, and in the interim, the management of affairs is handed over to the Council of People's Commissars, while the members of the Central Executive Committee work in their respective regions.

Organization of product production and distribution

In Russia, workers are organized into trade unions, with all workers in an industry belonging to their union. For example, carpenters and painters working in a metalworking factory belong to the Metalworkers' Union. Each factory has its own local union, and its Shop Committee, elected by the workers, acts as an executive committee.
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Federation of Trade Unions is elected by the annual Trade Union Congress. A special committee elected by this same congress establishes the wage scale.

With few exceptions, most large Russian factories have been nationalized and are currently owned by the workers. The task of the trade unions is therefore no longer to fight capitalism but rather to manage industry.

The Labor Commissariat of the Soviet government works in full agreement with the trade unions. Moreover, it is only elected by the Congress of Soviets with the approval of the trade unions.

An elected Supreme Council of the People's Economy is responsible for directing the country's economic life. It is divided into sections, such as those for metals, the chemical industry, etc., each headed by technicians and workers appointed by the Supreme Council with the approval of the Trade Unions.

Production in each factory is directed by a committee of three members : a representative of the Factory Committee, a representative of the Central Executive Committee of the Trade Unions and a representative of the Higher Council of the People's Economy.

Democratic centralization

The trade unions thus form a branch of government, and this government is the most highly centralized in existence.
It is also the most democratic government in history, for all organs of government are in constant contact with the working masses and under their direct influence. Furthermore, local soviets throughout Russia enjoy complete autonomy, enabling them to manage local affairs as they see fit, provided they conform to the national policy of the Congress of Soviets. Moreover, the Soviet government, representing only the workers, cannot help but act in their interests.

Many members of the IWW oppose centralization because they do not accept that it can be democratic. But where large masses are involved, recording individual wills is no longer possible ; only the will of the majority can be recorded, and Soviet Russia is administered in the common interest of the working class.

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be handed over to individuals or groups of individuals ; it must become the property of the entire community and a centralized authority is necessary to accomplish this transformation.

Industries that supply the needs of the entire population concern not only the workers they employ but the whole community and must be managed for the benefit of all. Modern industry is, moreover, so complex, its branches so interdependent, that in order to achieve the highest possible output with maximum efficiency, it must be subjected, according to a comprehensive plan, to a single management.

The revolution must be defended against the formidable assaults of the combined forces of global capitalism. Large armies must be raised, trained, equipped, and led. This means centralization. For two years, Soviet Russia alone withstood the repeated attacks of the capitalist world. Would it have been possible to form a Red Army of more than two million men without a central authority ?

The capitalist class has a highly centralized organization that allows it to throw all its forces against the divided and dispersed groups of the working class. The class struggle is a war. To overthrow capitalism, the workers must form an army with a general staff—but a general staff elected and controlled by the workers.

In times of strike, every worker knows that a strike committee is necessary—a centralized body charged with directing the action and whose orders must be obeyed—elected and controlled by the working masses. Soviet Russia is on strike, facing the entire capitalist world. The revolution is a general strike against the capitalist system. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the strike committee of the social revolution.

The proletarian revolutions currently underway in America and other countries will likely give rise to new forms of organization. The Bolsheviks do not claim to have had the last word on social revolution. But the experience of two years of workers' government in Russia is naturally of the utmost importance and must be closely studied by workers in other countries.

Policy

The word "politics" affects many IWW members like the sight of a red flag affects a bull—or a capitalist. For them, "politics" means "politician" and usually conjures up the image of the yellow socialist vying for their votes in the hope of securing a comfortable seat where he can conveniently forget the very existence of the workers.

Our "anti-political" working-class comrades are opposed to the communists, who, in their view, constitute a political party and who, indeed, sometimes participate in political struggles.
This is using the word "political" in far too narrow a sense. One of the principles upon which the IWW association was founded is expressed in these words of Karl Marx : "All class struggle is a political struggle." This means that every struggle of the workers against the capitalists is a struggle for political power—for the power of the state.

And it is in this sense that communists use the word "politics".

The yellow socialists imagine they can gradually conquer political power by using the very mechanism of the capitalist state to obtain reforms, and when they have obtained a majority in Congress, in legislative assemblies, when they have elected the president, the mayor and the sheriff, they believe they can use the legislative apparatus of the bourgeois state to peacefully abolish capitalism and likewise institute the community of labor.

This leads them to preach various reforms of the capitalist system, to open their ranks to small capitalists, to political adventurers of all kinds, and ultimately to conclude deals and make various concessions.

The IWW do not admit it any more than the communists.

As communists, we do not believe that governmental power can be seized through the mechanisms of the capitalist state. Since the state is the specific weapon of the capitalist class, its mechanisms are naturally designed to defend and strengthen the power of capitalism. Capitalist control of all institutions that shape public opinion—press, schools, churches, and public platforms—and capitalist control of the workers' political attitudes through control of their means of subsistence, make it extremely unlikely that workers will ever be able to "legally" elect, under a democratic capitalist system, a government dedicated to their interests.
And, at present, while the capitalist class of the entire world pursues with desperate ferocity its campaign of repression against the organizations of the conscious proletariat worldwide, this hypothesis is simply inadmissible.

But even if it were possible for workers to conquer the capitalist state through political means, the latter could not serve to establish the industrial community. The real source of capitalist power lies in capitalist ownership and control of the means of production. The capitalist state exists only to extend and defend this ownership and control. It cannot, therefore, serve to abolish them.

So far, the IWW and the communists agree. The capitalist state must be attacked by direct action. This action, in the correct sense of the term, is also political, because it has a political aim—the conquest of governmental power.

The IWW (International Workers' Party) proposes to achieve this goal through a general strike. The communists go further. History clearly indicates that the general strike is insufficient. Capitalists have weapons, and the experience of the White Guards in Russia, Finland, and Germany proves that they have sufficient experience and training to use their weapons against the workers. Furthermore, they have food stocks that allow them to hold out longer than the workers, who are constantly under pressure from want.
The communists, too, rely on the general strike, but they believe it must transform into an armed insurrection. The general strike and insurrection are forms of political action.

Revolutionary Parliamentarism

If this is the case, if communists do not believe they can seize control of the state through the ballot box, why do communist parties participate in elections and present candidates ?
The question of whether or not communists will participate in elections is secondary. Some communist organizations participate ; others do not. But the former do so only for propaganda purposes. Political campaigns give revolutionaries the opportunity to speak to the working class, to show them the class character of the state and what the workers' true interests are. They allow them to highlight the futility of reforms, to demonstrate the real interests that dominate capitalist and yellow socialist political parties, and to emphasize why the entire capitalist system must be overthrown.

The task of communists elected to Congress or legislative assemblies is to conduct propaganda ; to constantly expose the true nature of the capitalist state, to oppose the actions of the capitalist government and reveal their class character ; to demonstrate the futility of capitalist reforms and measures. Within the legislative assemblies, from the highest platforms of the nation, communists can denounce capitalist brutality and call workers to revolt.

Karl Liebknecht demonstrated what a communist could achieve in Parliament. His speeches in the Reichstag resonated throughout the world.
Others in Russia, Sweden (Höglund), and other countries did the same.

The most common objection to sending activists to capitalist legislative assemblies is that, regardless of their revolutionary value, they will invariably be corrupted by their entourage and led to betray the workers.
This belief is the product of long experience, gained primarily with socialist politicians and smooth talkers. But we, as communists, maintain that a truly revolutionary party will elect only genuine revolutionaries and will know how to keep them under its control.

Many IWW members are staunch opponents of using legislative assemblies or any other government institutions for propaganda purposes. However, the IWW organization has often not disdained such means. During the Lawrence strike of 1912, the IWW even used socialist Senator Victor Berger, who brought the demands of the strikers and IWW members before the House of Representatives. William D. Haywood, Vincent St. John, and many other IWW leaders readily testified before the U.S. government's Industrial Commission, taking advantage of this opportunity to disseminate their organization's ideas. But the most striking example of the use of the state's political machinery for propaganda purposes came in 1918 when the Chicago Federal Court, where one hundred IWW leaders were on trial, became a veritable workers' propaganda rally for three months.

These are examples of how the political mechanisms of the capitalist state can be used for propaganda purposes among the masses. These methods must be employed according to the circumstances—as must parliamentary action. The use of any weapon should not be condemned outright.

The specific task of the IWW is to prepare the workers to seize control of industry and to lead it. The special function of the communist political party is to prepare the workers for the conquest of political power and the exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Every worker must be a member of both the revolutionary trade union in their industry and the political party that fights for communism.

The social revolution and the future society

The goal of the IWW is to "build a new society within the old." This means : to organize the workers so completely that the capitalist system will eventually break down and give way to the already fully developed Industrial Community.

Such an undertaking requires the organization and discipline of the majority of workers. Before the war, it seemed possible to accomplish this task, although despite their fourteen years of activity, the IWW was only able to organize a tiny fraction of American workers.

At present, this design is merely utopian. Capitalism is in decline, revolution is at our doorstep, and history will not wait for the majority of workers to be organized—100%—according to the plan of the IWW or any other organization. We no longer have the prospect of a long, normal industrial development, which alone would have allowed the realization of such a design. The war has plunged the peoples of the world into a vast cataclysm, and they must think of immediate action, not of developing elaborate plans whose fulfillment would require years.

The new society will not be built, as we once thought, within the old one. We cannot wait for that. The social revolution is here. When the workers have overthrown capitalism, when they have crushed all attempts to re-establish it, they will be able to freely build the new society within their Soviet state.

In the face of social revolution, what is the immediate and major task of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) ?
As the most important revolutionary syndicalist organization in America, it is incumbent upon them to take the initiative in providing a single basis for the unification of all unions of a distinctly revolutionary character, of all workers who accept the principle of class struggle. These include the One Big Union, the WIIU, and certain dissident unions of the American Federation of Labor.

This is not the time for petty squabbles over names or minor organizational matters. The essential task is to unite all workers capable of mass revolutionary action in times of crisis.

As revolutionaries, they cannot refuse the invitations of the American communists eager to conclude an agreement with them for joint revolutionary action. The political party and the economic organization must march in step toward the common goal—toward the abolition of capitalism through the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviets, toward the disappearance of classes and the state.
The Communist International extends a fraternal hand to the IWW.

The President of the Executive Committee of the Communist International,

G. ZINOVIEV.

January 1920.

Capitalism is incompatible with women's freedom…

Robert Paris, Tiekoura Levi Hamed — 2026-06-15T13:44:00Z

Decaying, subsidized capitalism, more antisocial and bloody than ever, is even more incompatible with women's freedom…

With the new period of systemic collapse, social and political crisis, and war, women, more than ever victims of oppression, repression, and discrimination, are being called upon to lead revolutions.

Capitalism has never been compatible with women's freedom, and it is less so than ever as it collapses…

https://fr.internationalism.org/content/11329/avortement-constitution-femmes-ne-seront-jamais-libres-sous-joug-du-capitalisme

Violence against women is not decreasing : it is increasing !!!

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5414

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/violences-faites-aux-femmes/grand-entretien-pourquoi-la-france-ne-parvient-elle-pas-a-faire-baisser-le-nombre-de-feminicides_5696255.html

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/faits-divers-justice/les-violences-faites-aux-femmes-ne-diminuent-pas-1448447115

https://actu.fr/societe/violences-conjugales-pourquoi-le-nombre-de-feminicides-ne-baisse-pas_57849200.html

https://www.vivamagazine.fr/les-violences-faites-aux-femmes-ne-baissent-pas/

The oppression of women is not something that happened in the past or elsewhere : it is happening now and here at home !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1594

Women, more than ever victims in rich countries as well as in poor countries…

https://www.terrafemina.com/article/harcelement-de-rue-3-millions-de-femmes-le-subissent-chaque-annee-en-france_a338062/1

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2537

http://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2509

Where women are particularly attacked, raped, harassed : Mexico, India, South Africa, but also USA, England, Sweden, France....

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2584

A comforting lie circulates in Western bourgeois "democracy" : that women are increasingly free, recognized, protected, and equal to men. The opposite is true !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2222

Crimes against humanity… specifically against women, are not a thing of the past !!!

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4397

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2019/06/22/faut-j22.html

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2021/11/16/zvpq-n16.html

https://www.ohchr.org/fr/stories/2023/07/were-here-tell-it-mexican-women-break-silence-over-femicides

https://www.lavie.fr/actualite/geopolitique/au-mexique-les-assassinats-de-femmes-se-multiplient-dans-limpunite-78330.php

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meurtres_et_disparitions_de_femmes_autochtones_aux_%C3%89tats-Unis

Long live the revolt against rape and harassment of women !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2583

Enough with the oppression of women !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4185

The capitalist world's new offensive against women

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3363

Women's liberation has never come and will never come from bourgeois institutions.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2931

Women are more oppressed as a result of the collapse of the system…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2545

During the pandemic and economic collapse, violence against women and children has increased.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6100

Patriarchy and capitalism reinforce the oppression of women…

https://blogs.mediapart.fr/cadtm/blog/280516/le-patriarcat-et-le-capitalisme-renforcent-l-oppression-des-femmes

More than ever, patriarchy is the instrument of war of big capital against women and against the people…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5352

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3785

Women are victims of all religions, not just Islam…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article167

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1038

http://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1037

All religions and all bourgeois states are united against women !!!

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4409

Women, victims of all police forces in the world…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5507

Women, the most radical and the most rebellious…

https://euradio.fr/emission/KYQz-la-cause-des-femmes-en-europe-jade-champetier/PQ65-feminisme-et-cause-des-femmes-un-mouvement-radical

Women in revolt... around the world

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1970

When women rise up, they are at the forefront of the exploited and oppressed.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5350

Women at the forefront of revolutions…

https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/pourquoi-les-femmes-sont-de-plus-en-plus-progressistes-et-les-hommes-conservateurs-25-04-2024-2558635_23.php

https://observers.france24.com/fr/moyen-orient/20230906-notre-r%C3%A9volution-est-civile-les-femmes-de-soue%C3%AFda-en-premi%C3%A8re-ligne-contre-le-r%C3%A9gime-syrien

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/040519/revolution-au-soudan-les-femmes-sont-en-premiere-ligne-comme-toujours

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2023/01/10/les-iraniennes-sont-devenues-le-visage-de-la-lutte-feministe-mondiale-conversation-avec-des-femmes-en-lutte/

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/02/27/les-femmes-ont-construit-une-presence-dans-les-aspirations-revolutionnaires-du-monde-arabe_6030977_3232.html

https://www.challenges.fr/france/les-femmes-sont-au-coeur-du-mouvement-des-gilets-jaunes_631423

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article6441

Women workers and workers' wives in struggle all over the world

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve696

Domestic workers are fed up with being treated as domestic slaves and sex slaves

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve520

Women are doubly exploited…

https://www.marxiste.org/theorie/oppressions/2366-femme-et-salariee-doublement-exploitee

The working woman is not more free

https://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1491840909-le-travail-libere-femme-idee-de-riches

Building socialism involves emancipating women and protecting mothers

https://www.marxists.org/francais/trotsky/oeuvres/1925/12/lt19251200.htm

When women get involved, it's a social revolution…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article254

The fight against the oppression of women is inseparable from social revolution

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article256

Oppressed women and exploited workers, together for the overthrow of capitalism !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6903

In Iran, as in France and elsewhere, the liberation of women and the liberation of the exploited are inseparable.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6985

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6946

Feminism and class struggles

https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jean-marc-b/blog/290521/l-histoire-oubliee-du-courant-feministe-luttes-de-classe-en-france

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7405

The escalating world war is also a war against women and children...

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7467

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7694

Workers, women and youth of the world, let us not accept being cannon fodder in the next global slaughter of an exploitative system on its last legs !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7636

Decaying, subsidized capitalism, more antisocial and bloody than ever, is even more incompatible with women's freedom…

To liberate themselves, women have no choice but to overthrow the system of exploitation and unite with the proletariat to achieve this…

Home > 11- Book Eleven : WOMEN - AGAINST OPPRESSION > The liberation of women has never come and will never come from (…)
Women's liberation has never come and will never come from bourgeois institutions.

Sunday, October 20, 2013 , by Robert Paris

Trotsky wrote : "Without a doubt, sexual oppression is an important means of enslaving man. As long as there is oppression, there can be no true freedom. The family, as a bourgeois institution, is completely obsolete. We must talk more about this instrument..."

Lenin replied : "...And not only the family. All prohibitions on sexuality must be abolished... We can learn from the suffragettes : even the prohibition of homosexual love must be abolished."

cited by W. Reich in his work "The Sexual Revolution"

For a number of women's rights activists, it is the State that must decide in favor of women's rights, through legislation adopted by parliamentary chambers that enact laws which the State apparatus should then enforce. History has not shown this type of process. It is women themselves who have asserted their rights, not the legislature that has finally understood that women are within their rights. Neither since the "rule of law" of the French Republic nor before have legislators ever independently recognized the validity of women's demands. When the State decides to issue a law supposedly in favor of these rights, it always signifies social setbacks elsewhere, or hypocrisy in the law itself, its implementing decrees, and the way the State apparatus applies it. The State is the antithesis of freedom, and this is not only true with regard to women. The state can exploit the women's issue to pit men against women and thus divert attention from the social question. Or it can feign support for women, again to divide and further exacerbate tensions. It depends on the political and social circumstances.

While we may occasionally observe a small concession from the State towards women, we notice, after a certain time, that it has served to pave the way for other attacks, either from women or from the other side. And the State's policy is necessarily to ensnare women and men within the social and political system, thus trapping them.

It is important to first recognize that even the most modern capitalist bourgeois society cannot do without the divisions between men and women and the oppression of women, even if it hypocritically claims the opposite. Western societies certainly practice a feminine form of hypocrisy, but women gain nothing from it. The same politicians who pass laws on gender equality are still essentially "men" politicians. Yet, it is common practice to claim that attacks on women's rights only come from poor, non-Western countries, preferably Muslim ones, according to the propaganda disseminated to us daily.

The reality is very different : Western societies, far from liberating women, actually oppress, despise, and exploit them in a particular way. Women in wealthy Western countries are subjected to a truly violent form of racism, beginning with propaganda claiming that "all women are whores," that those who are raped brought it on themselves, and that women are simply manipulating and subversive.

It is already remarkable that this country, which claims to be the birthplace of the great French Revolution, is incapable of acknowledging the role of women in the revolutionary action that brought an end to feudalism, the monarchy, religious oppression, and medieval backwardness. Virtually no one in France can name a single female politician who played a major role in the French Revolution, and yet how many great names there were among the revolutionary women of that era !

However, the legislators who emerged from the French Revolution never had the slightest intention of relying on this revolutionary role of women to grant them, by law, the slightest political right to speak ; quite the contrary !

The civil and political laws of the Republic were clearly legislation in favour of property owners, the only ones with the right to vote and stand for election, and the only property owners that the republic recognized were men….

The French Revolution, which proclaimed the "rights of the citizen," did not in any way recognize the rights of women, since they were in fact the property of their husbands, in order to ensure that the inheritance remained within the descendants…

Bourgeois marriage made women into mere property, the producers of offspring, and servants of men. Confined to the role of eternal second, they had neither the right to practice important professions such as doctor, surgeon, or professor, nor the right to own and run businesses, nor the right to speak out in politics or to intervene in laws and the State.

The triumphant bourgeois society had perfectly seen the revolutionary character of women and, precisely because their rights had been won, the bourgeoisie no longer wanted to experience social revolutions….

If, during the revolution, bourgeois revolutionaries were already fighting tooth and nail to silence revolutionary women, afterwards it was the great era of the institutionalization of the oppression of women…

Even during the Middle Ages, the rise of the bourgeoisie coincided with a decline in freedoms, particularly women's rights. The bourgeoisie added its own exploitation and oppression to all those imposed by feudal law and oppressive lords. It was with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the end of the Middle Ages that a major campaign against free women, labeled witches, was launched. See "the witch hunts."

Even this campaign against free women, branded as whores and witches, exploited women's feelings, their fear that other women would seduce their husbands, steal from them, or cast spells on them. The state and institutions of the time, particularly religious ones, organized deception and murder and gave them a legal framework… These crimes were committed in the name of defending the very interests of women and couples…

The past has seen many ways of enslaving and deceiving women. There was the cult of Mary which, under the pretext of highlighting the role of the woman who gives birth and protects her, placing her at the very top of social and religious recognition, transformed women into mere procreators. The purity of the "virgin" who had produced a child without sleeping with a man (!!!) was used to denounce women's sexual freedom and their right to make love for pleasure. The laws of bourgeois marriage, under the pretext of ensuring the future of children, decreed that the woman was a minor, incapable of managing the household affairs on her own, while the man was destined to do so…

The result : for decades, it would be difficult to name a single woman who had contributed as a writer, professor, doctor, surgeon, artist, or who had advanced any field whatsoever. Delivering babies—the midwife—or cleaning the sick—the nurse or the nursing assistant—these were the very few areas in which women could work. Even apothecaries and dentists had to be men. This means that at least half of all talent, discoveries, progress, and arts were systematically destroyed. Since the male segment of society was primarily concerned with warfare, hunting, and feudal oppression, it is far more than half of human thought and creation that was destroyed while women's aspirations for freedom were systematically silenced.

Let us remember that a woman who refused the marriage that was being imposed upon her could be locked up in convent-prisons.

For centuries, under the domination of Western feudalism and then the bourgeoisie, female talents were crushed, discredited, stifled, thrown in the trash, and condemned to disrepute and opprobrium…

The little that has come to light shows us that these talents did indeed exist despite the great efforts to convince women that this was not their role.

The violence of the remarks made by male "good minds" towards women is sometimes surprising when one quotes numerous French authors, for example.

This ignores the fact that the role of these authors, in disseminating the dominant ideology, was to discredit women…

The dominant bourgeoisie, far from removing these behaviors from the Middle Ages, has confined women to a secondary role, not to say worse.

His democratic discourse stopped at the boundaries of gender. One only has to look at how long it took Western bourgeoisies to grant women the right to vote.

It is also important to understand that this was not done at all out of democratic concern or because of an awareness of injustices, but to make the acceptance of the unjust social order more palatable after a particularly atrocious world war in which women were the main heads of the household while the men were at war….

To create the illusion of openness at the end of World War II, bourgeois society needed to include women in elections. The initial aim was to make people believe that democratic elections would henceforth be the true means of expressing popular aspirations—a blatant lie and a blatant deception. And we have seen that women's suffrage, far from addressing women's rights, only served to solidify the existing power structure, including the prevailing machismo, both politically and socially.

Just as, in theory, a proletarian's vote was supposed to be equal to a capitalist's vote in Western bourgeois democratic society, women's suffrage was presented as equal to men's. Well, this changed nothing in the real lives of women in any concrete way, any more than it changed the lives of the proletariat ! Women may have voted, but it did nothing to diminish their devaluation, their inferior status, the degradation of their image, the contempt and violence they endure, or even their political inferiority. For example, the image in the vocabulary

Class domination requires, more than ever, diversions such as racism against women, against foreigners, against young people, against other religions, etc. Regarding male/female relations, bourgeois society continues to offer men the possibility of having an exploited woman at home, the right to oppress others as well, even if they are proletarians. There is always someone more exploited than the exploited, more oppressed than the oppressed, more foreign than the foreigner : his wife.

The bourgeoisie, conceiving of everything through the lens of private property, also conceived of male/female relations through this lens. It is no coincidence that marriage plays such a significant role in bourgeois thought and that joint or separate property ownership is central to marriage, with its various types of "marriage contracts" : marriage is a bourgeois contract…

The other remarkable point is the importance the bourgeoisie attaches to the defender of its general interests : the bourgeois state. Here again, there is no marriage without state intervention. One can conceive, in the bourgeois sense, of a marriage without religion, but no marriage between two individuals without state intervention. What makes the relationship between two people recognized is the act of appearing before the mayor and being registered by the state… In short, no private aspect whatsoever, even though bourgeois society prides itself on being the epitome of individual liberty !

Marriage is therefore a commercial transaction between two individuals, which also involves their shared assets, from the property they may acquire to the children they may have. Everything is conceived within the framework of private property… Everything is marked by the idea of future inheritances, potential disputes between co-owners, etc.

Individuals who believe themselves to be free and independent of any predetermination are caught up in these bourgeois criteria without even realizing it. Even if many people no longer marry, they don't necessarily see or aren't shocked by the fact that marriage is conceived primarily as a business relationship.

This is the whole strength of bourgeois democracy : to make modern slaves, the proletariat, believe that they are free and act only in their own interest when they are led to act only in the interest of capitalist society.

This is striking in the context of labor relations, since it is the exploited worker who is forced to chase after their exploitation. But it is equally striking in the context of male/female relationships, which are just as determined by the interests of the exploiters, even if those involved are unaware of it.

Women themselves are often led to view marriage as a safer and more lasting alliance, more secure if there are children, to the point that couples who have not been married for many years sometimes get married when they have children born.

However, it is obvious that marriage in no way guarantees a relationship or the future of the children. On the other hand, the bourgeois order attaches great importance to the number of couples who "go through the mayor," in fact, who are recognized by the bourgeois state…

And this marriage certainly wasn't arranged for the woman's security. Just look at how, for many years, the woman within the couple didn't have access to the bank account, while it was the husbands who most often squandered the family's money !

The hypocrisy of bourgeois society is to pretend that everything is done for the good of the individual and his personal success when everything is done to make him chained to the social order, including making the wife put pressure on the husband so that he does not demand too much at work and does not get involved in politics "so as not to take risks for the children".

Hypocrisy has only grown in recent years with a dominant discourse that calls for equality between men and women as much as it calls for "sustainable development," and with just as much bad faith…

Women who are raped or beaten (including by their husbands) are no better received at police stations, nor are they better protected or treated. Maternity wards are far from being shielded from austerity measures. Abortion clinics are severely understaffed and under-resourced. Those who exert moral and physical pressure against the right to abortion and contraception are not challenged by the bourgeois state, its police, or its justice system. Social inequalities, of course, persist. Not to mention the education system, which discriminates between men and women from a young age.

The bourgeoisie and its supposedly democratic state have not liberated women, neither in the West nor elsewhere, nor in a Christian, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or Muslim world…

Westerners who claim to be outraged by the plight of women in poor countries are equally hypocritical. Were they outraged when these countries were part of Western colonial empires ? Why didn't they then use colonial domination to fight colonial oppression ? Have we ever heard of a Western colonizer fighting harems, female genital mutilation, the sale of women and children, the abduction of women, the repudiation of women, and other rotten "traditions" when these regions were under colonial rule ? Certainly not !

And today, have we heard of a Western state condemning these practices when the dictatorial regime imposing them is a friend of Western governments, as is the case with Saudi Arabia ? Never !

Have we heard that France has used its recent popularity in Mali, its military occupation, or its close ties to the new government to combat female genital mutilation in Mali ? Certainly not ! And everyone knows that French imperialism only denounced the plight of Malian women under the military occupation by Islamist armed groups in the north to justify its military intervention.

Could French imperialism be concerned about the fate of women and, at the same time, exploit the region for its uranium, seriously contaminating nearby villages, men, women and children, as a result of this exploitation, as recalled by a recent demonstration against the French nuclear trust Areva ?

In Western countries, there is a false impression that all authorities—government, justice system, police, administration, parliaments, city halls, etc.—are fully mobilized to protect women. But violence against women is by no means declining in the West ; quite the opposite. Prostitution, far from decreasing, is on the rise, utilizing all the latest technologies, such as the internet.

Of course, everyone remembers that the bourgeois state accepted the right to abortion and contraception. Simone Veil (a right-wing political leader and minister at the time, not to be confused with the revolutionary mystic Simone Weil) is constantly glorified for this. But abortion (which led to the guillotine not so long ago in France) would never have been legalized if women and men hadn't had the courage to give their names and declare, "I have performed abortions !"

Where is the concern for the fate of women when families of undocumented immigrants, Roma, and other immigrants are deported ? Where is the concern for the fate of women when bourgeois states around the world reduce their aid to poor countries, particularly cutting aid to women and children ? Where is the concern for the fate of women in the numerous wars waged by Western countries ? For example, in Afghanistan, where these countries claimed to be intervening militarily to defend women against the Taliban, and where they are now preparing to bring the Taliban back to power after massacring civilians, destroying, and bombing under the pretext of liberation… Where is the concern for the fate of women when Western countries support the dictatorships of the oil principalities against the Arab Spring ? And so on…

Nowhere in the world have bourgeois states mobilized for women, even when they suffer horrific atrocities. No action was taken by the Mexican authorities to protect the murdered women of Juarez. No action was taken by the Indian state in the face of the increasing number of rapes. See India and Women

On the contrary, with the crisis of bourgeois domination over the world following the economic collapse of 2007-2008, the ruling classes are considering all means of increasing violent opposition, even civil wars, between segments of the poor population, and the contempt for women is one of the ways to promote fascism… See : The oppression of women is worsening worldwide, in connection with the capitalist collapse that began in 2007

The more capitalist domination of the world appears threatened to the ruling classes, the more they will reactivate hatred, contempt, and violence against women.

Terrorizing women is a key way to prevent social anger from turning into social revolution. Just look at how the Algerian ruling classes extricated themselves from the revolutionary wave that began in 1988 by supporting the development of a fundamentalist movement violently hostile to women, before turning the country into a bloodbath, ostensibly to fight these same Islamists, but in reality to preserve the bourgeois military dictatorship.

The ruling classes have very good reason to fear women particularly in this situation of destabilization of capitalist society. Every era of social revolution has seen women at the forefront of the revolution : from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune and the October Revolution, not to mention the Spanish Revolution…

The future of the world depends on the common struggle of women, young people, and the working class…

When banks and finance collapse, what do we do ?

Karob, Robert Paris — 2026-06-14T03:38:00Z

What will happen, why, and what we need to do

It's possible that in the coming months, your bank card could stop working. That you could go to the ATM and find no cash dispensed. That your salary wouldn't be deposited. That your rent payments would be blocked. It may sound like science fiction. It isn't. It already happened in Argentina in 2001. In Cyprus in 2013. In Greece in 2015. Closer to home, in the United States in March 2023, three American banks collapsed in a matter of days. In Europe, Credit Suisse, one of the world's largest banks, disappeared in the aftermath.

What's coming next is on a different scale. This article explains why, and what you need to prepare for.
What's happening in finance today

Economist Frédéric Lordon, research director at the CNRS, recently gave an interview in which he sounded the alarm. His diagnosis can be summarized in a few simple points.

• First point : private credit. For the past fifteen years or so, a new segment of finance has developed under the radar of regulation. It's called private credit. The principle is simple : wealthy investors entrust their money to hedge funds, which then lend to struggling companies. These companies pay very high interest rates, allowing investors to pocket 10% per year when everything goes well. Today, two trillion dollars circulate in this system. That's three times more than the subprime mortgage bubble that triggered the 2008 crisis.

• Second point : default rates are skyrocketing. Companies that borrowed from these funds are starting to find they can no longer repay. In 2024, the default rate was 1%. A Swiss bank, UBS, now predicts it could climb to 15%. Investors are getting scared and demanding their money back. But this money was lent for five to seven years to companies that can't repay immediately. As a result, the funds are refusing to return the money. This is called a fund run. It's the equivalent of a bank panic applied to investment funds.

• Third point : the artificial intelligence bubble. Trillions of dollars have been invested in companies like OpenAI (the one behind ChatGPT). The problem : OpenAI has never made a single cent. It loses six to eight billion dollars a year. Yet, it is valued at over 800 billion dollars based on the promise that it will become profitable by 2030. If this promise doesn't hold true, the entire pyramid will collapse.

• Fourth point : other debts. In the United States, payment delays are skyrocketing across the board. On auto loans. On student loans. On credit cards. On commercial real estate loans. Each category represents a trillion dollars. And in each one, the warning lights are flashing red.

• Fifth point : the war in the Middle East. The oil shock triggered by the events around the Strait of Hormuz is, according to the head of the International Energy Agency, more severe than those of 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined. It will cause both recession and inflation. It will accelerate business failures. It will make traditional crisis management by central banks impossible.

Lordon concluded that he found no precedent in the history of capitalism for this simultaneous collision of crises. Neither did we.
Why this time the state won't be able to save the banks

In 2008, when American banks collapsed, governments rushed to bail them out. They gave, lent, and guaranteed trillions of dollars and euros. In France, Sarkozy's government implemented a massive aid package. In return, we were told we would have to "tighten our belts." The five years that followed were marked by austerity, cuts to public services, mass unemployment, and Greece being placed under supervision.

The bailout was paid for twice by the workers. First, by the public money used to save private banks. Then, by the austerity measures that followed to repay the resulting public debt.

This time, the mechanism will no longer be able to function in the same way. For three reasons.

• States are already heavily indebted. In 2008, French public debt stood at 68% of GDP. Today, it is at 113%. American debt is at 123%. Italian debt at 137%. Japanese debt at 260%. Each new crisis forces states to borrow more, and each new indebtedness reduces their room for maneuver for the next. Financial markets are beginning to grow wary. Interest rates on public debt are rising. Rating agencies are downgrading.

• Central banks are at their breaking point. They have printed astronomical amounts of money since 2008 to keep the system afloat. The European Central Bank's balance sheet has grown from €2 trillion in 2008 to €6.5 trillion today. The US Federal Reserve's has increased from €900 billion to €7 trillion. Continuing down this path risks massive inflation. Stopping would mean letting the house of cards collapse.

• Wars empty the coffers. The militarization of Europe, rearmament, and exploding arms spending absorb considerable public resources at the very moment when the financial crisis will require massive funds to save the real economy.

Lordon himself, despite remaining a benevolent reformer of the system, acknowledges this. He even cites the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, who responded with an awkward silence to a journalist from The Economist who questioned her about the political consequences of the coming crisis. This awkwardness speaks volumes.
What Lordon doesn't see, and what we say

Up to this point, Lordon accurately describes the situation. His material analysis is sound. But when it comes time to conclude, he falls back on the 2008 scenario. He hopes that the population will revolt and that the crisis will open a "historic window" to impose a re-regulation of finance and a return to a "boring and disciplined" banking profession. In short : he dreams of a reasonable left wing coming to power and putting its foot down.

We believe this model is outdated given the facts it describes. If governments no longer have the means to bail out banks, it's not an opportunity for re-regulation that's opening. It's a much more brutal collapse that's looming, with only two possible outcomes.
What will actually happen when it breaks down ?

Imagine an ordinary week. A Monday morning. You turn on the television, or rather, you receive an alert on your phone. A major French bank has gone bankrupt over the weekend. Asian markets are plummeting. European stock exchanges open in a catastrophic crash. The government announces emergency measures.

Here is what can happen in the hours and days that follow.

• ATMs are limited or empty. Withdrawal limits are set at 50 or 100 euros per day, as in Greece in 2015. Then some ATMs stop working completely due to a lack of cash.

• Card payments are becoming unreliable. Some go through, others don't. Merchants are starting to refuse cards and demand cash. But there's no more cash.

• Transfers are blocked. Salaries are not being paid on the scheduled dates. International transfers are interrupted. Businesses can no longer pay their suppliers.

• Supply chains are blocked. Without payment, trucks stop leaving. Without trucks, supermarkets go unsupplied. Shelves are emptied within 48 hours.

• The state declares a state of emergency. The army is deployed in the cities to "maintain order." Prices are frozen by decree. Exchange controls are imposed : you can no longer transfer money abroad. Borders are reinforced.

• The bourgeoisie is rushing headlong into war. Seeing the situation slipping out of its control economically and socially, the French and European bourgeoisie is accelerating foreign military involvement. What was merely preparation is becoming direct engagement. Conscription is back on the table. Armament factories are running at full capacity while the rest of the economy collapses.

This scenario may seem exaggerated. It isn't. Each of its elements has already occurred, somewhere, in the last twenty years. The unique aspect of the present moment is that they could all happen simultaneously, in Europe, on a scale unseen since 1945.
The two paths : barbarism or socialism

In such a situation, there is no third way.

• The first path is that of the bourgeoisie. It consists of salvaging what can be saved of capital by imposing the full burden of the catastrophe on the workers. Rationing. Increased police and military control. Forced wage cuts through inflation. Massive increase in working hours. Requisitioning of property for the war effort. Repression of social movements. And, to provide an outlet for popular anger, a headlong rush into foreign war against a designated enemy : Russia, China, or Iran, depending on the circumstances.

This is barbarism. It is already being prepared. One only has to look at the exploding arms budgets, the tightening of internal security laws, the war rhetoric that invades the media, to understand that the bourgeoisie knows what is coming and is actively preparing for it.

• The second path is that of the workers. It consists of not waiting for the bourgeois state to orchestrate the catastrophe, but of directly taking control of the material circulation of society. This path has a name, a history, and concrete precedents.

In 1871 in Paris, when the bourgeois government collapsed before the Prussian armies, the workers of the Commune organized their own supply, defense, and distribution. In 1917 in Russia, workers' and peasants' soviets took charge of production and distribution when the Tsarist system crumbled. In 1936 in Spain, the workers' committees of Catalonia kept the industry and agriculture of an entire region running during the Civil War. In 1974-1975 in Portugal, after the Carnation Revolution, workers' committees occupied factories, farms, and empty housing, and brought them back to life.

These experiments were all defeated militarily or politically. But they proved that it is materially possible. That when the capitalist system collapses, workers are not condemned to passively await the return of bourgeois order. They can organize production and distribution themselves, provided they have prepared the necessary tools.
What needs to be built now : the Federation of Working People's Committees

No one spontaneously forms a neighborhood committee on a Monday morning when the banks are closed. No one creates a works council for food supplies on a Tuesday when the supermarkets are empty. These mechanisms are built before a crisis, not during one.

These instruments have a name in the history of the workers' movement. They are called committees, or councils, or soviets. They are not a theoretical invention. They are not a whim of revolutionary intellectuals. They are the material form that workers' self-organization has taken, on several occasions, in the face of the collapse of bourgeois power. Before stating what we propose, we must recall what has already existed. Because what has existed can exist again.
What the Paris Commune of 1871 demonstrated

In March 1871, Thiers' bourgeois government collapsed before the Prussians. The workers of Paris seized control of the city. For 72 days, they established a new type of power, unprecedented in history. Marx analyzed it in *The Civil War in France* as the first historical form of workers' power. What were its principles ?

• First principle : all civil servants, all elected officials, all leaders are elected by universal suffrage by the workers themselves. No civil servants appointed from above. No permanent bureaucracy. No administrative careers.

• Second principle : all elected officials are recallable at any time by those who elected them. If a delegate betrays their mandate, if they deviate from the intentions of those who appointed them, they can be dismissed immediately and replaced. This is the exact opposite of the bourgeois parliamentary system where, once elected for five years, a representative can do almost anything without being held accountable.

• Third principle : the binding mandate. A delegate does not decide according to their own whim. They carry out the decisions made by those who mandated them. They report regularly on their actions. They are bound to their constituents by a precise list of demands.

• Fourth principle : equal pay. Elected officials of the Commune do not receive more than a skilled worker. No more material privileges, no more political career as a means of personal enrichment.

• Fifth principle : abolition of the standing army and police, replaced by the people in arms. The workers themselves ensure the defense of their power, in democratically controlled militia units.

The Commune was crushed in blood by the Versailles bourgeoisie—30,000 dead during the Bloody Week. But it bequeathed to the world workers' movement the model of a new type of power, which is not an improvement on bourgeois parliamentarism but its material negation.
What the Russian Soviets demonstrated in 1905 and 1917

In October 1905, in the midst of a general strike against Tsarism, the workers of Saint Petersburg elected a Council—in Russian, a Soviet—composed of delegates sent by each striking factory. One delegate for every 500 workers. The Soviet took control of the strike, the armed defense of the strikers, supplies, and the revolutionary press. Trotsky became its chairman. He was crushed by Tsarist repression after a few weeks, but the model had been established.

In February 1917, the Tsar fell. Immediately, throughout Russia, soviets sprang up again. Factory soviets. Neighborhood soviets. Soldiers' soviets. Peasants' soviets. At each level, elected, recallable, mandated delegates. The soviets sent their delegates to regional soviets, which in turn sent their delegates to the Petrograd Soviet, and then to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

For eight months, two powers coexisted in Russia : the Provisional bourgeois government on one side, and the soviets on the other. The soviets effectively controlled the factories, the regiments, and the workers' districts. The bourgeois government controlled nothing. This is what is called the dual power structure. It could not last. In October 1917, the Second Congress of Soviets seized power and proclaimed the Soviet government.

What exactly did these soviets do ? They elected factory committees that took charge of production. They organized the supply of goods to the cities. They controlled railway transport. They led the workers' militias. They settled labor disputes. They managed requisitioned vacant housing. They kept running what the bourgeois state had ceased to run.
What the German workers' councils demonstrated in 1918-1919

November 1918. Germany loses the war. The sailors of Kiel mutiny. The revolution spreads throughout Germany in a matter of days. Everywhere, Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte—workers' and soldiers' councils—are formed, modeled on the Russian system. In Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, and all the major industrial cities. The Kaiser abdicates. The Republic is proclaimed.

The movement could have led to a council government, as in Russia. This was prevented by the betrayal of German social democracy, which allied itself with the Prussian army and far-right Freikorps to crush the councils in a bloodbath. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were assassinated in January 1919 by the Freikorps, on the orders of Friedrich Ebert's social-democratic government. The Weimar Republic that emerged from this, by its very weakness, paved the way for the rise of Nazism fourteen years later.

The lesson is clear : without consistent revolutionary leadership, without a break with the social democrats who want to save the bourgeois state, the councils can be disarmed and crushed. That is why we insist : the building of committees, starting today, is inseparable from a political break with those who will, when the time comes, seek to neutralize them.
What the Catalan committees demonstrated in 1936

July 1936, Spain. Fascist generals Franco, Mola, and Sanjurjo launch a coup against the Republic. In Barcelona, the working class, organized in the CNT (anarcho-syndicalist) and the UGT (socialist), resists with arms and crushes the coup plotters in a matter of days. The Republican state collapses. The workers take control of the city.

For several months, Catalonia functioned through committees. Factory committees took charge of production—Barcelona manufactured munitions, trucks, uniforms, and bread for the front and the population. Supply committees collected and distributed food. Neighborhood committees organized local life, defense, and education. People's militias went to the front against Franco. All this without a boss, without a prefect, without a police force. George Orwell, who fought there, described this experience in Homage to Catalonia.

This revolution, too, was crushed, by a combination of Stalinist repression (which sought to liquidate the committees in order to restore the authority of the republican state) and Franco's military victory. But for a year and a half, it proved that a modern urban economy could function under direct workers' control.
What Portugal attempted in 1974-1975

Closer to our time, after the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, which overthrew the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship, Portugal experienced eighteen months of revolutionary upheaval. Workers occupied factories abandoned by their fleeing owners and restarted them under self-management. Landless peasants in the South occupied large estates and organized them into cooperatives. Tenants occupied empty apartments. Residents' committees organized themselves in all the working-class neighborhoods of Lisbon. Workers' commissions took control of businesses.

The movement was defeated by the combined forces of Soares's Socialist Party (backed by the entire European social-democratic movement and German money) and the right wing of the army. The movement's material gains were gradually dismantled in the years that followed. But here again, experience shows that in a developed European country, in the heart of the twentieth century, workers' self-organization can take control of entire sectors of the economy.
What we are proposing in concrete terms

We propose to build, starting now, in every neighborhood, in every company, in every city, committees of the working people that explicitly draw on this historical tradition. Not as a nostalgic exercise, but as a tool for the struggle of today.

• These committees operate according to the following principles — these are not inventions of ours, they are the very principles of the Commune, the soviets, the workers' councils and the Catalan committees :

• All delegates are elected by the committee's general assembly, which includes all relevant workers (from the neighborhood, the company, the building). No self-proclaimed delegates. No unelected natural leaders.

• All delegates are recallable at any time. If a delegate ceases to faithfully represent the members who elected them, the assembly can recall them immediately and elect another. There is no need to wait for the end of a term. Recall is immediate.

• All delegates are mandated. They do not decide according to their own whims. They represent the decisions made collectively by the committee assembly. When they participate in coordination meetings, federations, and congresses, they defend the positions of their committee, not their own.

• All delegates regularly report on their activities to the assembly that elected them. There is no separate power that would become autonomous from the grassroots.

• No material privileges. The delegates receive no perks, no inflated allowances, no separate salaries. They maintain their ordinary living conditions. This is essential to prevent the re-emergence of a bureaucracy detached from the working people.

• The committees federate. The committees of the same district elect delegates to a city committee. The city committees elect delegates to a regional committee. And so on, up to a national congress. At each level, the delegates are elected, recallable, and mandated, without privilege. This is the Federation of Committees of the Working People : not an organization that descends from above, but a coordination that rises from below, preserving at each level the sovereignty of the grassroots assemblies.

• Immediate tasks for the committees, starting today. The committees are not discussion groups. They have concrete, practical tasks. Fighting for better wages, rents, and working conditions. Organizing support when a neighbor is threatened with eviction, when a colleague is laid off, when a family lacks basic necessities. Identifying the needs of the neighborhood and the company. Identifying available resources, skills, and tools. Learning to know each other, to trust each other, to make collective decisions. Preparing connections between committees, communication methods, and logistical capabilities. In short, doing today, on a small scale, what will be needed tomorrow on a large scale.

• Tasks in the revolutionary crisis. When the crisis erupts and the bourgeois state proves incapable of running society, the prepared committees immediately take over. Food distribution in the neighborhoods. Requisitioning of stocks in private warehouses. Price control by supply committees. Production maintained or restarted by factory committees. Empty housing requisitioned and allocated by neighborhood committees. Workers' militias to defend workers against the forces of repression and fascist gangs. And, as the movement spreads, the Congress of Working People's Committees seizes political power, becoming the real power in place of the bankrupt bourgeois power.
Conclusion : the historical window that opens

Capitalism is not an eternal inevitability. It is a historical mode of production. It was born at a specific moment in history—Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries—it imposed itself on the entire world in the 19th century, it entered its imperialist and declining phase in the 20th century, and today it is reaching the material limits of its reproduction. The contradictions accumulating in the financial, productive, ecological, and geopolitical spheres are not mere circumstantial accidents. They are the expression of the fact that this system has entered the final phase of its historical existence.

This final phase could last a long time if we let it. It could end in barbarism—fascism, widespread war, ecological collapse, mass destruction—if we are unable to oppose it with an organized alternative. Conversely, it could pave the way for socialism if we know how to seize the moment.

History teaches us that revolutionary opportunities don't arise every day. The previous one in France was in 1968. Before that, it was the Liberation in 1944-1945. Before that, it was the Popular Front in 1936. And before that, the Paris Commune in 1871. Four opportunities in one hundred and fifty years. Each one partially ruined by the absence of consistent revolutionary leadership, by the betrayal of reformist institutions, and by the disorganization of the workers at the decisive moment.

We are entering a period that could open a new window. Perhaps wider than any before, because the impending crisis is deeper, more systemic, more global. This window must not be squandered.

To prevent it from being wasted, the working class must have its own organs of power when the time comes. These organs will not fall from the sky. They will not spontaneously spring from the minds of the masses the moment the crisis erupts. They must be patiently built, starting now, in the long preparation that always precedes revolutionary moments.

That is why we call on all workers, employees, laborers, technicians, precarious workers, retirees, students who read these lines to get in touch with us, to form committees where they are, to link up with other committees that are forming, to build step by step the Federation of Committees of the Working People.

This is not a matter of personal taste. It is not simply another question of political opinion. In the period that is beginning, it is the material condition for workers not to be victims of the impending catastrophe, but to use it as a springboard for their emancipation.

As Leon Trotsky wrote in 1938, in the Transitional Program, which remains for us a fundamental guiding text : “The historical crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership.” This crisis has lasted for almost a century. It will not be resolved by mere rhetoric. It will be resolved by the patient and determined construction of a political instrument equal to the times. This instrument is the Federation of Working People's Committees, linked to a substantial revolutionary party capable of giving it a clear vision and firm political leadership.

History is watching us. The workers of the Commune, the soviets of 1917, the German councils of 1918, the Catalan committees of 1936, the Portuguese commissions of 1975, and all the others before and after, are watching us. They did their part. They proved it was possible. They paid the price of their defeat for us, so that we, in turn, could win.

It's up to us to take over.

Neither resignation nor reformist illusion. The building now of the organs of tomorrow's workers' power.

For the Federation of Working People's Committees.

Socialism or barbarism.
Messages

1. When banks and finance collapse, what do we do ?, May 8, 5:09 AM , by Myriam

Global banks and finance are threatened by the international situation caused by the war in the Middle East…

https://www.imf.org/fr/blogs/articles/2026/04/14/war-in-the-middle-east-challenges-global-financial-stability

2. When banks and finance collapse, what do we do ?, May 9, 6:37 AM

All Mélenchon proposes in response to the collapse of finance and banks is a moratorium on debts !

He doesn't talk about a proletarian revolution, but about defunding the world while remaining within capitalism. It's a utopia...

3. When banks and finance collapse, what do we do ?, May 22, 6:23 AM , by Florent

Lenders are getting rich at the expense of the state with the government's blessing !

https://www.capital.fr/economie-politique/la-france-emprunte-a-son-plus-haut-niveau-depuis-2008-quelles-consequences-pour-les-credits-et-l-inflation-1526738?utm_source=firefox-newtab-fr-fr

https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/marches-financiers/dette-la-france-emprunte-un-montant-record-a-20-ans-sur-les-marches-2209736

https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/budget-collectivites-etat/dette-pourquoi-la-france-emprunte-desormais-pour-plus-cher-que-depuis-2011-be1f3882-2121-11f1-9955-6d8ac04e7ab9

We, the proletariat, reject these debts and the interest on those debts : let the capitalists pay ! And if they refuse, we will pay from their capital !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7277

Permanent revolution is our permanent philosophy

Robert Paris — 2026-06-13T03:56:00Z

Permanent revolution is our political philosophy of revolutionary development

The theory of permanent revolution, its declared enemies and its false friends, this is the essence of what opposes true revolutionaries to reformists, to opportunistic extreme leftists, to sectarian extreme leftists, to revolutionaries in error and to all the false friends of the proletariat.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?mot317

For example, Tony Cliff rejects what he does not understand about permanent revolution or what he attributes to Trotskyism because false Trotskyists interpret permanent revolution in this way…

https://www.marxists.org/francais/cliff/1963/00/cliff_19630000.htm

Fake Trotskyists and permanent revolution…

https://www.marxists.org/francais/just/ddt2/sj_ddt2_5_04.htm

https://www.lutte-ouvriere.org/mensuel/article/documents-archives-la-revue-lutte-de-classe-serie-1978-1986-article-la-revolution-permanente-telle-que.html

https://wikirouge.net/D%C3%A9bats_sur_la_R%C3%A9volution_permanente

https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/La-methode-de-Trotsky-pour-analyser-la-situation-mondiale

https://lanticapitaliste.org/actualite/strategie/la-theorie-de-la-revolution-permanente-et-son-actualite

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2023/10/31/kjko-o31.html

https://mensuel.lutte-ouvriere.org/mensuel/article/documents-archives-la-revue-lutte-de-classe-serie-1967-1968-article-la-theorie-de-la-revolution.html

In what way is "permanent revolution" (also called permanent revolution) a philosophy of Marxism which opposes step-like behavior, gradualism, progressivism, reformism and opportunism, from Marx to Trotsky, and not a conjunctural analysis of an exceptional situation and especially not a means of attributing a fundamentally revolutionary character to social forces which do not possess it.

History does not progress gradually, following one step at a time up a staircase to heaven… It undergoes brutal and violent regressions as well as progressions that can even skip stages of historical gradation. Backward societies, reactionary situations, and even regressions can provoke brutal revolutionary advances.

Economic, social, and political development is subject to uneven and combined development (in the sense that advanced segments combine with others that are significantly behind).
The world does not progress together or at the same pace, and inequalities in development can make some links in the chain of domination of the global owning classes more fragile than others ; a break in the chain at one point can fatally weaken the entire system.

The contradictions arising from uneven and combined development must be fully understood and exploited by revolutionaries. These contradictions mean that the national question cannot be resolved within the framework of capitalism and must be addressed by the proletariat. They also mean that the revolutionary struggle must penetrate the struggle for reforms and use it as a transition. Furthermore, they mean that only the proletariat can achieve democratic, peaceful, and liberating goals for oppressed peoples, for all non-capitalist social strata, for all the oppressed. And the revolutionary program of the proletariat must clearly emphasize these goals. The intervention of revolutionaries must be guided by a transitional program that leads from national struggles to international struggles, from struggles for reforms to struggles for socialism, from struggles for peace to revolutionary war, and so on.

Revolutionary communists must not stand apart from, nor call on proletarians to stand apart from, reformist struggles, without themselves falling into reformism ; from national struggles, without falling into nationalism ; from petty-bourgeois struggles, without forgetting the proletarian character of their struggle ; they must unite the different contradictory aspects in a single revolutionary class struggle against the capitalist class.

Many programmatic, social and political points stem from this vision of the march of the social revolution : a transitional program instead of the traditional opposition between a revolutionary program and a reformist program, possible alliances with petty bourgeois strata and oppressed peoples, a united workers' front, etc.

Marx and Engels already used the term "permanence of the revolution" to describe revolutions like the French Revolution, which maintain the revolutionary dictatorship of a class until the transformation of the entire social structure, or to define their orientation in the revolutions of 1848.[6]

At the time of the debates on the Russian Revolution of 1905, the question of the nature of the coming revolution was hotly debated. The vast majority of socialists believed it would be bourgeois-democratic, but :

• some, essentially the Menshevik right wing, insisted that the revolution would be led by the bourgeoisie, that it might not happen if the socialist wing played into the hands of reaction, and that the socialist revolution would only occur in the distant future ;

• others insisted on the necessity of a decisive role for the popular masses, workers and peasants, and on the fact that the revolutionary dynamic should not be stopped, as it could go further than anticipated, particularly if it coincided with a world revolution. Luxemburg[7] and then Kautsky[8] used the expression "permanent revolution." Lenin said, "We are for uninterrupted revolution."[9]
For his part, Trotsky based his theory primarily on his experience of the Russian Revolution of 1905, then on the confirmation of his theory based on the 1917 revolution and the failure of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-1927. This led him to reaffirm and elaborate on his theory of Permanent Revolution in 1932 in his eponymous book.[3]

https://wikirouge.net/R%C3%A9volution_permanente

In the first Address of the Central Committee of the Communist League to its members in Germany, in March 1850, Marx wrote :

“While the petty-bourgeois democrats want to end the revolution as quickly as possible and after at most fulfilling the above demands, it is in our interest and our duty to make the revolution permanent, until all the more or less propertied classes have been removed from power, until the proletariat has conquered power, and until, not only in one country, but in all the ruling countries of the world, the association of proletarians has made sufficient progress to put an end to the competition between proletarians in those countries and to concentrate at least the decisive productive forces in their hands… But they (the German workers – SNT) will themselves contribute to their final victory far more by becoming aware of their class interests, establishing themselves as an independent party as soon as possible, and not allowing themselves for a moment to be distracted—by the hypocritical phrases of the petty-bourgeois democrats—from the autonomous organization of the party of the proletariat. Their battle cry must be : Permanent revolution !”

https://wikirouge.net/texts/fr/Adresse_du_Comit%C3%A9_Central_%C3%A0_la_Ligue_des_communistes,_Mars_1850

Trotsky wrote, summarizing his position of 1905-1906 in "Balance Sheet and Prospects" :

"Once in power, the Russian proletariat that will overthrow Tsarism will not only refuse, but will be unable, to confine itself to the execution of a bourgeois democratic program. It will only be able to carry the revolution through to its conclusion if the Russian revolution transforms itself into a revolution of the European proletariat. The bourgeois democratic program of the revolution will then be superseded, along with its national limitations, and the temporary political domination of the Russian working class will develop into a prolonged socialist dictatorship. But if Europe remains stagnant, the bourgeois counter-revolution will not tolerate the government of the exploited masses in Russia and will push the country far back from a democratic workers' and peasants' republic. Therefore, once it has seized power, the proletariat will not be able to remain within the bounds of bourgeois democracy." He will have to develop the tactic of permanent revolution, that is, to overturn the barriers between the minimum and maximum programs of social democracy, to carry out ever deeper social reforms, and to seek direct and immediate support from the revolution in Western Europe.

https://www.marxists.org/francais/trotsky/livres/bilanp/bilan_persp_0.html

https://www.marxists.org/francais/tagore/revolution_permanente.htm

DRAFT INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME :

CRITIQUE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL THESES (1)

(June 28, 1928)

In memory of my daughter Nina, who died at her post at the age of 26. (0)

The draft program, that is, the fundamental document that is to define all the activities of the Communist International for many years to come, was published only a few weeks before the convocation of the congress, which was held four years after the Fifth Congress (2). This delay in publication cannot be justified by the fact that the first draft was published even before the previous congress, as several years have passed since then. The second draft differs from the first in its entire structure and attempts to take stock of the developments of recent years. Nothing could be more imprudent or more ill-considered than to rush to adopt this draft at the Sixth Congress, a work that bears the marks of haste and even negligence, without prior serious criticism in the press and without it having been widely discussed in all the parties of the Communist International.

In the few days we had between receiving the document and sending this letter, we were only able to address some of the fundamental issues that need to be addressed in the program.

Due to time constraints, we have had to completely set aside, without examining them, a whole series of very important questions addressed in this project, which may not be of pressing current importance, but which could become exceptionally important in the future. This in no way means that it is any less necessary to critique them than those parts of this project to which this work is devoted.

It should be added that we had to work on this new project under conditions that prevented us from obtaining the most essential information. Suffice it to say that we were unable to even obtain the first draft and therefore had to rely solely on our memory regarding two or three other matters. It goes without saying that all quotations are taken from the original texts and have been carefully verified.

1. PROGRAM OF INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTION
OR PROGRAM OF SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY ?

The most important question on the agenda of the Sixth Congress is the adoption of the program. Its character can define and fix the physiognomy of the International for a long time. The importance of a program does not lie so much in its formulation of general theoretical concepts (this ultimately amounts to "codification," that is, a concise exposition of truths and generalizations that have been firmly and definitively acquired) ; it is much more about taking stock of the world's economic and political experience of the last period, in particular the revolutionary struggles of the last five years, so rich in events and errors.

The fate of the Communist International in the coming years depends, in the literal sense of the term, on how the program understands and judges these events, these mistakes and these divergences.

1. General structure of the program

In our era, which is that of imperialism—that is, of a global economy and politics directed by finance capital—there is not a single communist party that can establish its program by taking only or primarily as its starting point the conditions or trends of its own country's development. This applies equally and fully to the party exercising power within the borders of the USSR.

The hour of the demise of national programs definitively struck on August 4, 1914. (3) The revolutionary party of the proletariat can only base itself on an international program corresponding to the character of the present epoch, that of the crowning and collapse of capitalism. An international communist program is by no means a sum of national programs or an amalgamation of their common features. It must take as its starting point directly the analysis of the conditions and trends of the world's economy and political state, taken as a whole, with their connections and contradictions, that is to say, with the mutual dependence between its components. In the present epoch, infinitely more than in the previous one, the direction in which the proletariat is moving from a national point of view must and can only be deduced from the direction taken in the international sphere, and not vice versa. This is the fundamental difference that separates the Communist International from the various forms of national socialism from the outset.

It was based on these considerations that we wrote in January of this year :

"We must begin drafting the program of the Communist International (Bukharin's is merely a poor program for a national section of the Communist International, not for a world communist party)." (4)

We have been insisting on these considerations since 1923-1924, when the question of the United States of America arose in all its magnitude, as a problem of world politics and of European politics, in the most direct sense of the word.

Supporting the new project, Pravda wrote that the communist program "differs radically from the program of international social democracy, not only in substance, in its fundamental theses, but also in the internationalism characteristic of its structure" (5)

This somewhat vague formulation obviously expresses the very idea we have just presented, an idea that was oncestubbornly rejected. One can only approve of the break with the
fir st project presented by Bukharin, which, moreover, did not give rise to any serious exchange of views precisely because of its inconsistency. While it presented a dry, schematic picture
of the evolution of an abstract country toward socialism, the new project, on the other hand, attempts (unfortunately without success and without coherence, as we shall see) to start from the
world economy as a whole in order to determine the fate of its various parts.

By linking together countries and continents at different stages of development in a system of dependencies and oppositions, by bringing together the various levels of their development and then immediately pushing them apart, by ruthlessly setting all countries against each other, the
world economy has become a powerful reality that dominates the economic life of the various countries and continents. This fundamental fact alone lends a very realistic character to the very idea of a world communist party. It is by bringing the world economy as a whole to the highest level of development it can reach under the regime of private property that imperialism, as the project rightly states in its introduction, "exacerbates to the extreme the contradiction between the growth of the
productive forces of the world economy and the barriers that separate nations and states."

It is not possible to advance a single step in the solution of the great problems of world politics and revolutionary struggle if one does not understand this fact which first appeared in all its clarity during the last imperialist war.

We could only approve the radical shift in the very axis of the program, in the new project, if in seeking to reconcile this position, which is the only correct one, with diametrically opposed tendencies, we had not introduced into this project the most unfortunate contradictions, thus removing all principled significance from the new way of approaching the question in
its essence.

2. The United States and Europe

To characterize the first project, thankfully abandoned since, it will suffice to say that, as far as we
can recall, it didn't even mention the United States of North America. The essential problems of
the imperialist era, by its very nature, cannot be considered solely from the perspective of abstraction
and theory, but also in their material and historical content ; yet, in the first project, they were lost in the inert framework of a capitalist country considered "in general." The new project (and this is, of course, a significant step forward) already speaks of the "shift of the world's economic center toward
the United States of America," of the "transformation of the Dollar Republic into a global exploiter," of the fact that the United States "has already achieved global hegemony," and finally states that the rivalry (the project uses the unfortunate term "conflict") between the United States and European capitalism, British capitalism in particular, is becoming the axis of global conflicts. It has now become quite evident that a program which did not clearly and precisely define these fundamental facts and factors of the world situation would have nothing in common with the program of the party of the
international revolution.

Unfortunately, the essential facts and trends of world development in the modern era, which have just
been pointed out, are simply designated by name, included in the text of the project, cited by a theoretical sleight of hand, without being intimately linked to the whole structure of the program, without any conclusions being drawn from them regarding the prospects and the strategy.

America's new role in Europe since the
capitulation of the German Communist Party and the defeat of the
German proletariat in 1923 is not analyzed. It
is not explained that the period of "stabilization,"
"normalization," and "pacification" of Europe, as well as
the "regeneration" of social democracy, unfolded in
close material and intellectual correlation with the first
steps of American intervention in European affairs.

Furthermore, it is not shown that the inevitable
future development of American expansion, the shrinking of
European capital markets, including in Europe itself, will lead to the
greatest military, economic, and revolutionary upheavals
ever seen.

It is also not specified that the United States, continuing
inexorably to exert pressure on capitalist Europe,
will increasingly reduce its share of the world economy, which
obviously means that relations between European states
will not only not improve, but on the contrary will become
extremely strained with violent outbursts leading to
wars : the result is that states, like classes, clash
with even more fury than in times of abundance and
growth when all that remains to be fought over is a meager,
ever-meager ration.

The project fails to explain that the internal chaos of antagonisms
between European states deprives the latter of any
hope of seriously and successfully resisting the
ever-increasing centralization of the North American Republic
. Overcoming European chaos through a Soviet United States
of Europe is one of the primary tasks of the
proletarian revolution, infinitely closer in Europe than in America
(one of the main reasons being precisely
the existence of barriers between states) ; it will therefore very
likely have to defend itself against the North American bourgeoisie
.

On the other hand, he failed to demonstrate (and this is an equally
important aspect of the same global problem) that, precisely, the
power of the United States in the world and the irresistible expansion
that stems from it compel them to introduce into the very foundations of their
edifice the explosives of the entire universe : all the antagonisms of
the West and the East, the class struggles of old Europe,
the insurrections of colonial peoples, all wars and
all revolutions. On the one hand, this makes
North American capitalism, in the new era, the
fundamental force of the counter-revolution, increasingly concerned
with maintaining "order" in every corner of the globe ;
on the other hand, it is through this very process that the immense
revolutionary explosion of this already
dominant and ever-growing global imperialist power is being prepared. The logic of
world relations indicates that this explosion could not be
long in coming after the outbreak of the proletarian revolution
in Europe.

For having explained the dialectic of the mutual relations linking
Europe and America, we have been subjected to
a wide variety of accusations : we have been called pacifists denying the contradictions existing in Europe, accepting Kautsky's
theory of super-imperialism, and many other sins. There is no reason to dwell here on these "accusations," which, at best, stem from a complete ignorance of the actual processes, as well as our attitude toward them. However, it cannot fail to be noted that it would be difficult to expend more effort to confuse and obscure this world question of the utmost importance than did, among others, the authors of the draft program in their petty struggle against our formulation. Yet it is precisely this formulation that is being entirely confirmed by the course of events. Lately, in the main organs of the communist press, efforts have been made to minimize on paper the importance of American hegemony by relying, for this purpose, on the approach of the commercial and industrial crisis in the United States.

We cannot stop here examining the question of the
duration of the American crisis and the depth it might
eventually reach. This is a matter of current circumstances, not
of policy. We do not doubt, of course, that the crisis
is inevitable ; we do not deny at all that it is possible that
the one that will occur soon will be very severe and very
deep, commensurate with the global reach that
American capitalism has now attained. But attempting to deduce from this that
the hegemony of the United States is declining or weakening is
truly meaningless and can only lead to serious
strategic errors, because precisely the opposite is true.

During the crisis, the hegemony of the United States will be felt more
fully, more openly, with greater intensity and implacable
determination than during the period of growth. The
United States will seek to resolve and overcome its difficulties
and troubles primarily at the expense of Europe, whether
in Asia, Canada, South America, or Europe
itself, and whether by "peaceful" or military means.
It must be clearly understood that, while the initial period of
American intervention brought about stabilization and pacification in Europe
, which still largely persist
and may even be revived and strengthened periodically
(especially in the event of further defeats of the proletariat), the
general course of US policy, particularly if its economy
encounters difficulties and crises, will cause
profound upheavals in Europe and throughout the world.
One conclusion of paramount importance is inescapable :
revolutionary situations will not be lacking in the
coming decade, just as they were in the one that has just
passed. It is all the more crucial to correctly understand
the fundamental mechanisms of the unfolding of events,
so as not to be caught unawares by their impact. If, during the
past decade, the primary source of revolutionary situations
lay in the immediate consequences of the
imperialist war, conversely, in the new
postwar decade, such situations will arise primarily from the
mutual relations between Europe and America. A major crisis in the
United States would once again sound the alarm for wars and
revolutions. We repeat : revolutionary situations will
not be lacking. Their outcome depends on the international party of the
proletariat, the maturity and fighting capacity of the
Communist International, the soundness of its strategic position, and
its tactical methods.

This line of thinking is not expressed at all in the
draft program of the Communist International. A fact
as important, it seems, as "the shift of the
world's economic center toward the United States" is mentioned
only in passing, by a simple journalistic remark ; nothing
more. It is quite impossible to justify this by lack of
space : indeed, shouldn't fundamental questions
be addressed in a program ? In
this regard, it must be noted that the draft dwells far too much on
secondary and tertiary issues, even setting
aside its careless style and numerous repetitions ; by
removing these, the program could be reduced by at least a
third.

3. The slogan of the Soviet United States of Europe

Nothing can justify the removal, from the new draft
program, of the slogan "United Soviet States
of Europe," already adopted by the Communist International in 1923
after a rather lengthy internal debate. Or perhaps,
precisely on this issue, the authors want to
"return" to Lenin's stance in 1915 ? This still needs to be properly
understood.

As is well known, during the early stages of the war,
Lenin hesitated regarding this slogan, initially introduced in
the theses of the Social-Demokrat (the central organ of the party at
the time), then rejected by Lenin. This shows that it was
not a matter of rejecting it a priori on principled grounds : it had to
be judged strictly from a tactical point of view, its positive and negative aspects weighed
in relation to the given stage of the war. It goes without
saying that Lenin rejected the possibility of the realization of
a United States of capitalist Europe. I viewed things in
the same way when I put forward the slogan of a United States
exclusively as a prospect, as a form of state for the
dictatorship of the proletariat in Europe.

I was writing :

“A more or less complete economic union of Europe
from above, following an agreement between
capitalist governments, is a utopia. In this respect,
things cannot go further than
partial compromises and half-measures. Therefore, the economic union
of Europe, promising enormous advantages to the
producer and the consumer, as well as to
the entire development of culture in general, becomes the revolutionary task
of the European proletariat struggling against
imperialist protectionism and its instrument, militarism.” (7)

And further on :

"The United States of Europe constitutes above all a
form, the only conceivable form, of the
dictatorship of the European proletariat." (8)

But at that time Lenin saw certain dangers in
presenting the question in that very way. Since
no experiment in the dictatorship of the proletariat
had been conducted in a single country, and also due to the lack of clarity from a
theoretical standpoint on this problem, even within the left wing
of the social-democratic movement of that time, the slogan of a United States
of Europe could give rise to a conception according to
which the proletarian revolution should begin simultaneously
, at least across the entire European continent. It was precisely
against this danger that Lenin warned. But on
this point, I didn't disagree with
Lenin in the slightest. I wrote at the time :

“That no country should ‘wait' for others in
its struggle is an elementary idea, which it is useful and necessary to repeat so that the idea of parallel international action
cannot be replaced by that of international inaction while waiting. Without waiting for others, we begin to fight and we continue to fight on the national stage with the absolute certainty that our initiative will give impetus to the struggle in other countries.” (9)

Then comes a sentence of mine, the very one that Stalin,
at the Seventh Plenum of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International, quoted as the most dangerous expression of
"Trotskyism," that is, the "lack of confidence in" the
internal forces of the revolution and the hope of receiving help
from outside.

"And if this (the extension of the revolution to other
countries) did not happen, there would be no hope
of believing (as evidenced by historical experience
and theoretical considerations) that a
revolutionary Russia could resist a conservative Europe
, or that a socialist Germany could remain
isolated in the capitalist world." (10)

It is on this quotation and two or three others of the same
kind that the plenary session based its condemnation
of "Trotskyism," which, on this "
fundamental question," supposedly had an attitude "having nothing in common with
Leninism." Let us therefore pause for a moment to listen to Lenin
himself.

On March 7, 1918, he said regarding the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk :
"This is a lesson, for it is absolutely true that without
a German revolution we will perish." (11).

One week later :

“Universal imperialism and, alongside it, the
triumphant march of social revolution cannot coexist
.” (12)

A few weeks later, Lenin said :

"The fact that we are late has pushed us
forward ; we will perish if we cannot hold out until
we encounter the powerful support of the
insurgent workers of other countries." (13)

But perhaps he said this particularly under the pressure
of the Brest-Litovsk crisis ? No, in March 1919, Lenin repeated
again :

“We live not only in one state, but in
a system of states ; it is inconceivable
that a Soviet republic could maintain itself for a long time alongside
imperialist states. In the end, one or the other
will prevail.” (14)

A year later, on April 7, 1920, Lenin recalled again :
"Capitalism, if considered on a global scale
, continues to be stronger than the power of the Soviets,
not only militarily but also economically.

It is from this fundamental consideration that we must
begin and never forget it. (15)

On November 27, 1920, regarding the problem of concessions
, Lenin said :

“Now we have passed from war to peace,
but we have not forgotten that war will return.
As long as capitalism and socialism exist
, we cannot live in peace : in the end,
one or the other will prevail ; the Requiem will be sung, either for the
Soviet Republic or for world capitalism. This is
a postponement of war.” (16)

But perhaps the survival of the Soviet Republic prompted
Lenin to "recognize his mistake," to renounce "
distrust of the internal forces" of the October Revolution
?

At the Third Congress of the Communist International, that is,
in July 1921, Lenin stated that :

"An extremely fragile, extremely unstable balance has been created
, but finally a balance that allows the
Socialist Republic to exist, albeit not for very long,
in a capitalist environment." (17)

But there is more ; on July 5, 1921, Lenin declared directly
during a session of the congress :

“For us, it was clear that, without the support of the
world international revolution, the victory of the
proletarian revolution was impossible. Before and after the
revolution, we thought that either the revolution would break out
very quickly in the most advanced capitalist countries, or
, if it did not, we would perish. Despite this
conviction, we did everything
we could in all circumstances to save the Soviet system, because
we knew that we were working not only for ourselves
, but also for the international revolution.” (18)

How far removed these words are, grand in their simplicity, entirely
imbued with the spirit of internationalism, from the
current pronouncements of self-satisfied epigones !
In any case, we have the right to ask : how do all
these declarations of Lenin differ from the conviction
I expressed in 1915, that the coming revolution in Russia or the
future socialist Germany could not survive "isolated in
a capitalist world" ? The timelines have exceeded expectations,
not only mine but also Lenin's ; but
the underlying idea retains all its force, perhaps now
more than ever. Instead of condemning it, as the
plenary session did on the basis of an incompetent and malicious report, it is
essential to incorporate it into the program of the
Communist International.

In defense of the slogan of a Soviet United States
of Europe, we emphasized in 1915 that the law of
uneven development does not in itself constitute an argument against this slogan
; indeed, the inequality of historical development is itself
unequal with respect to various states and continents : the countries
of Europe are developing unequally in relation to one
another. Nevertheless, it can be said with absolute historical certainty
that it is not possible, at least during the
historical period under consideration, for any of these countries to gain
the advantage that America has gained over Europe. There is one
scale of inequality for America and another for Europe.
Historical and geographical conditions have determined
in advance such a close organic link between the countries of Europe
that they cannot possibly extricate themselves from it. The
current bourgeois European governments are like murderers
chained together. As already mentioned, the
revolution in Europe will ultimately have
decisive importance for America as well. But in the immediate,
short term, the revolution in Germany will be far more
important for France than for the United States of North America . It is from this historical perspective that the political validity of the slogan of a Soviet federation of Europe
is derived .

We speak of relative validity, for it goes without saying that this
federation will expand towards Asia through the gigantic
bridge of the Soviet Union, eventually leading to a union of the
world's socialist republics. But that will already be the second
epoch, or the next chapter of the imperialist period, and
when we get there, we will find the appropriate formulas.

It can be demonstrated by other quotations that the disagreement
with Lenin in 1915 was strictly a matter of
tactics and was essentially only provisional. But the
best proof of this is the course of events
: in 1923, the Communist International adopted this
controversial slogan. If it had been true that
the slogan of the United States of Europe could not be accepted in 1915 on matters of principle, as the authors of the draft program
now try to claim , the Communist International could not have adopted it eight years later. It must be assumed that the law of uneven development continued to apply during those years.

The entire problem I have just outlined stems from the
dynamics of the revolutionary process taken as a whole.
International revolution is considered a process encompassing a set of mutual relationships whose concrete forms and, so to speak, succession
cannot be predicted , but which is perfectly clear in its general historical outline. Without understanding this, it is impossible to have a correct political orientation. However, things change radically when one starts from the idea of socialist development underway and even nearing completion in a single country. There now exists a "theory" that teaches that it is possible to build complete socialism in a single country, and that relations between it and the capitalist world can be based on a "neutralization" of the world bourgeoisie (Stalin). From this fundamentally reformist, rather than revolutionary and internationalist, perspective, the necessity of the slogan "United States of Europe" disappears, or at least diminishes. But it appears to us precisely because it contains the condemnation of the idea of socialist development isolated in a single country. For the proletariat of every European country, even more so than for the USSR ( though this is only a difference of degree), the extension of the revolution to neighboring countries, the armed support they will give to the insurrections , is of the most urgent necessity ; not for considerations of abstract international solidarity, which, in itself , is incapable of mobilizing the classes, but because of an argument formulated hundreds of times by Lenin : we cannot maintain ourselves if the international revolution does not help us in time. The slogan of the United Soviet Union responds to this dynamic of the proletarian revolution ; it does not arise simultaneously in all countries, but spreads from one to another ; It requires a very close link between them, first and foremost in the European arena, both to defend itself against its very powerful external enemies and to

the necessities of economic construction.

It is true that one might object that after the
Ruhr crisis (19), which was precisely the last push to
adopt this slogan, it no longer played a
significant role in the agitation of the communist parties of Europe and
could not, in a sense, take root. But the same is absolutely
true for the slogans of the workers' government, the
Soviets, etc., in other words, for all the slogans of the
period immediately preceding the revolution. This is explained by
the fact that, contrary to the politically erroneous judgment
of the Fifth Congress, the revolutionary movement has been steadily
weakening on the European continent since the end of 1923. But
it is precisely for this reason that it would be dangerous to draw up a
program, or parts of it, by referring only
to this period. It is no coincidence that the slogan of a
Soviet United States of Europe was adopted, despite all
reservations, precisely in 1923 when revolution was expected to
break out in Germany (20) and when the problems of
relations between states in Europe had become
particularly acute. Any further aggravation of the internal crisis in
Europe, and even more so of the world crisis, if it is
deep enough to raise fundamental political issues
, will inevitably create conditions favorable to
the adoption of the slogan of a Soviet United States of Europe.

It is therefore a fundamental error to omit it from the
program, without rejecting it outright, in other words, to
keep it in reserve, "just in case." In
matters of principle, the politics of reservations is pointless.

4. The criterion of internationalism

As we already know, the project strives, to our
credit, to take the world economy
and its internal trends as its starting point. Pravda is perfectly
right to say that this is where we
fundamentally differ from national-patriotic social democracy.
Only by starting with the world economy (a whole that dominates
its parts) can the program of the
international proletariat party be developed. But precisely in analyzing the
essential trends in world development, the project not
only reveals gaps that weaken its scope, as
has been shown above, but also manifests in places
grossly flawed conceptions, which leads it to serious errors
.

On several occasions, and not always appropriately, the project
refers to the law of uneven development of capitalism as the
fundamental law determining almost everything. A series of errors
in the project, including a major theoretical error , rests on a truncated and erroneous conception of the law of unequal development
, neither Marxist nor Leninist.

In its first chapter, the project states :

"The inequality of economic and political development
is an absolute law of capitalism. This inequality
increases and intensifies even further in the era of imperialism
."

That's right. This formulation condemns the way Stalin
recently posed the question, claiming that the law of
uneven development was unknown to Marx and Engels, and that it had
been discovered by Lenin. On September 15, 1925, Stalin
wrote that Trotsky was in no way justified in referring to
Engels, who was writing at a time "when there could not even be
any question (!!) of the law of uneven development of capitalist countries."
Although these assertions seem implausible,
Stalin, one of the drafters, nevertheless
repeated them several times : the text of the draft, as we
see, takes a step forward on this point. Even setting aside this
correction of a basic error, what he says about the
law of uneven development remains fundamentally one-sided and insufficient.
First of all, it would be more accurate to say that the entire history
of humankind unfolds under the sign of unequal development.

Capitalism already finds the various parts of humanity at
different stages of development, each with profound
internal contradictions. The extreme variety of levels
attained and the extraordinary inequality in the pace of development
of different parts of humanity during different periods
constitute capitalism's starting point. Only
gradually does it master the inequality it has inherited, refract it
, and modify it through its own methods and by following its own
paths. Distinguishing itself from the economic systems that
preceded it, capitalism has the characteristic of always seeking
economic expansion, penetrating new regions,
overcoming economic differences, transforming
closed provincial and national economies into a
system of interconnected vessels, and thus bringing together and equalizing the economic and cultural levels of the most advanced and the most backward
countries .
Without this fundamental process, one cannot
conceive of the relative leveling first of Europe and
England, then of America and Europe, the industrialization
of the colonies, which reduces the gap between India and
Great Britain, as well as the consequences of the processes
listed, on which not only the program of
the Communist International is based, but its very existence.

But by bringing countries closer together and equalizing their levels of
development, capitalism operates according to its
own methods—that is, anarchic methods—which
continually undermine its own work by pitting one country and one
branch of production against another, favoring the development
of some parts of the world economy while hindering and
relegating others. Only the combination of
these two fundamental tendencies—centripetal and centrifugal,
leveling and inequality—both consequences of the
very nature of capitalism, can explain the living fabric of the
historical process.

Because of its universality, mobility, and the accelerated pace
of the diffusion of financial capital, and because of its own
inherent drive, imperialism further accentuates these two tendencies. At a
pace and depth previously unknown, imperialism
binds together the various national and continental blocs into a unified whole , placing them in close and vital
interdependence and aligning their economic methods, social forms, and levels of development. At the same time, imperialism pursues this "goal" through such antagonistic means, making such leaps forward and engaging in such raids on backward countries and regions, that the unification and leveling of the world economy it achieves is accomplished with more violence and convulsions than in previous periods.

Only this dialectical, rather than abstract and mechanical, conception
of the law of unequal development makes it possible to avoid the
radical error from which the draft program
proposed at the VI Congress could not escape.

Immediately after having characterized this law in a
truncated way as we have seen, the project states :

“It follows that the international revolution of the
proletariat cannot be conceived as a single,
simultaneous, universal act. It follows that the victory of
socialism is possible first in a few small countries
and even in a single isolated capitalist country.”
It goes without saying that no one can dispute that it is
impossible for the international revolution of the proletariat to be a
“simultaneous act,” especially after the experience of the
October Revolution carried out by the working class of a backward country under
the pressure of historical necessity, without waiting for the
proletariat of the advanced countries to “rectify the situation.” It is perfectly
correct and appropriate to resort to the law of uneven development within these limits. But the second half of the conclusion, the unfounded assertion that the victory of socialism is possible in “a single capitalist country, taken in isolation,”
is quite different . To demonstrate this, the draft simply states : “it follows” ; in other words, this possibility is deduced from the law of uneven development. But this is not the case. The exact opposite "follows." If the historical process consisted of various countries evolving not only unevenly, but also independently of one another, remaining isolated, then one would undoubtedly have to deduce from the law of uneven development the possibility of building socialism in a single capitalist country taken in isolation : first in the most advanced, then in the most backward, as they reached maturity. This was the usual, somewhat average, conception of the transition to socialism in pre-war social democracy. It was precisely the theoretical consecration of social-patriotism. The project certainly does not adopt this point of view, but it drifts toward it.

His theoretical error lies in attempting to extract from the law of
uneven development what it does not and cannot
contain. Inequality, or the uneven pace of development of
various countries, continually undermines their
growing economic ties and interdependence, but it by no
means eliminates them : in the aftermath of a
four-year-long, infernal slaughter, these countries are forced to trade coal,
wheat, oil, gunpowder, and suspenders. On this
fundamental point, the project presents things as if historical development
were accomplished in leaps ; but the economic terrain
that provokes and on which these leaps occur is either completely
outside the authors' field of vision or they
arbitrarily disregard it. They act thus with the sole objective of defending
the indefensible theory of socialism in one country.

After what has been said, it is not difficult to understand
that the only correct way to pose the question would be the following :
already in the pre-imperialist era, Marx and Engels had come
to the conclusion that, on the one hand, the irregularity, that is to say the jerks
of historical development, extend the proletarian revolution to
a whole period during which nations will enter
the revolutionary torrent one after another ; but that,
on the other hand, the organic interdependence of the various countries, which has
become an international division of labor, excludes the possibility
of building socialism in a single country ; now
more than ever, when imperialism has extended, deepened and
intensified these two antagonistic tendencies, the Marxist doctrine,
teaching that one can only begin the socialist revolution
on a national basis, but that one cannot build
socialist society within the framework of a nation, is two and three times
truer. In this question, Lenin only broadened and made
more concrete the way in which Marx posed the question and the solution
he gave to it.

Our party's program is based on the idea that the
October Revolution and the construction of socialism are contingent upon
the international situation. To demonstrate this, it would suffice
simply to copy the entire theoretical section of our program
. Let us recall here only that when, at the Eighth
Party Congress, the late Podbielsky (21) suspected certain formulations in the
program of referring only to the revolution in Russia,
Lenin replied to him as follows in his closing speech on
this matter (March 19, 1919) :

“Podbielsky attacked one of the paragraphs talking about
the social revolution in preparation… Clearly this
argument is unfounded because our program refers to a
social revolution of global scope.” (22)

It is worth mentioning that around this
time Lenin proposed calling our party not the
Russian Communist Party, but simply the Communist Party, to further
emphasize that it was the party of the international revolution.
In the Central Committee, only my vote supported this
proposal. However, he did not bring the matter before the
Congress, given that the Third International was being organized at that time
. This position clearly demonstrates that
the very idea of socialism in one country was not even a possibility then.

This is the sole reason why the party program does not
condemn this theory but simply excludes it.
However, in the program of the Young Communists adopted
two years later, there was already, in order to educate young people in
the spirit of internationalism, a direct warning against
national illusions and narrow-minded nationalism regarding the
question of proletarian revolution. We will discuss this in
more detail later.

The situation is quite different with the new draft program
of the Communist International. In accordance with the
revisionist evolution of its authors after 1924, it embarks, as
we see, in a completely opposite direction. Yet the
answer given to the question of socialism in one country
determines the value of the entire project, that is to say, its character
as a Marxist or revisionist document.

Of course, this project explains carefully,
persistently, and repeatedly highlights and emphasizes the differences
between the communist and reformist ways of framing
the issues. But these assurances do not solve the problem.

It is as if we were on a ship equipped with numerous
Marxist devices and mechanisms, with its sails set wide open to all
revisionist and reformist winds. Anyone who, through the experience
gained over the last three decades, and especially
the exceptional experience of China in recent
years, has learned to understand the powerful dialectical interdependence
between the class struggle and party programs
, will understand us when we say that the
new revisionist sails can destroy the entire functioning
of the safety and rescue mechanisms of Marxism and
Leninism. This is why we are obliged to elaborate
further on this crucial question, which will determine
the development and destiny of the
Communist International for a long time to come.

5. The theoretical tradition of the party

The draft program in the above quotation
clearly and intentionally employs the phrase "victory of
socialism in one country" to achieve a
superficial, purely verbal similarity to Lenin's 1915 article ;
it was cruelly, not to say criminally
, misused during the discussions surrounding the construction of
socialist society in one country. The draft resorts to the
same method in another instance, when it "alludes" to
Lenin's words to bolster its position. Such is its
scientific "methodology."

From all the rich Marxist literature and the treasure trove of
Lenin's works, deliberately ignoring everything Lenin wrote, said,
and did, disregarding the programs of the party and the
Communist Youth, neglecting everything that the leading militants of the
party without exception had expressed at the time of the
October Revolution when the question clearly (and how clearly) arose
, disregarding what the authors of the project, Stalin
and Bukharin themselves, had said up to and including 1924, only two quotes from Lenin are
retained, in all and for all, to defend the theory of
national socialism which was born at the end of 1924 or the beginning of 1925 from the
necessities of the struggle against the so-called "Trotskyism",
one extracted from the article on the United States
of Europe, written in 1915 ; the other from his
unfinished posthumous work on cooperation. Everything that contradicts these two
short quotations—all of Marxism, all of Leninism—
is simply dismissed. As for the two quotations, artificially
isolated from their context and interpreted by their followers with
gross errors, they serve as the basis for a
new, purely revisionist theory whose political implications are not yet foreseeable
. Thus, before our very eyes, an attempt is being made, using
scholastic and sophistical methods, to graft
a branch of a completely different kind onto the Marxist trunk : if this
graft succeeds, it will infect and strangle the entire tree.

During the plenum, Stalin declared (and it wasn't the
first time) :

"The question of building a socialist economy
in one country was first raised in
the party by Lenin, as early as 1915." (23)

It is therefore acknowledged here that before 1915,
socialism in a single country was not a concept. Stalin and Bukharin cannot,
therefore, claim to be in line with the entire previous tradition of
Marxism and the party on the issue of the international character
of the proletarian revolution. This should be noted.

Yet what exactly did Lenin say "for the first time"
in 1915, contradicting what Marx, Engels, and Lenin himself
had said up to that date ?

In 1915 Lenin wrote :

“The unequal distribution of economic and political development
is an absolute law of capitalism. It follows that the
victory of socialism is possible at first in a few
small countries and even in a single
isolated capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, after
expropriating the capitalists and organizing socialist production within its borders
, would rise up against the rest of the capitalist world
by drawing to itself the oppressed classes of other countries,
inciting them to revolt against the capitalists, and
even intervening, if necessary, by military force
against the exploiting classes and their states.” (24)

What did Lenin mean when he wrote this ? Simply
that the victory of socialism, in the sense of establishing the
dictatorship of the proletariat, is possible first in a single country,
which will thus find itself in opposition to the capitalist world.
The proletarian state, in order to repel attacks and launch its own
revolutionary offensive, must first "organize
socialist production within its borders," that is, direct the work itself
in the factories taken from the capitalists. That's all. As we
know, a "victory of socialism" of this kind was first
achieved in Russia ; the first workers' state, in order to
repel global intervention, first had to "organize
socialist production within its borders" or else "trusts of the consistent socialist type
." Lenin therefore meant by victory of
socialism in one country not the fantasy of a
self-sufficient socialist society - especially in a
backward country - but something much more realistic,
namely : what the October revolution achieved in our country from the very
first period of its existence.

Perhaps more evidence is needed to prove it
? There is so much that it is difficult to choose.

In his Theses on War and Peace (January 7, 1918),
Lenin referred to the need "in Russia for a certain period of
time, at least a few months, for the success of socialism
"... (25)

At the beginning of the same year, 1918, in an article directed
against Bukharin and entitled : "On Leftist Childishness and
the Petty Bourgeoisie", Lenin wrote :

“If, in less than six months for example, we had
established state capitalism in our country, it would be a success
and the surest guarantee that within a year socialism would be
definitively consolidated in our country and become invincible
.” (26)

How could Lenin set such a short deadline to
"consolidate socialism definitively" ? What material,
productive, social meaning did he give to these words ?

This question will appear in a completely different light if we
recall that on April 19 of the same year, 1918, Lenin said
in his report to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the
Soviets :

"It is doubtful that the generation immediately following us
, which will be more developed, will entirely embrace
socialism."

On December 3, 1919, at the congress of artels and
collective exploitations, Lenin spoke with even more vigor :
"We know that we cannot introduce
the socialist order right now ; may God grant that it be
established among us in the lifetime of our children, perhaps even
our grandchildren..." (28)

In which of these two cases was Lenin right :
when he set a twelve-month deadline for "definitively consolidating
socialism," or when he charged not our
children, but our grandchildren, with building the socialist order ?
Lenin was right in both cases, because he thus had in mind
different, and incomparable, stages in the construction
of socialism.

In the first instance, Lenin meant by "the definitive consolidation
of socialism" not the construction of
socialist society within a year or even "a few months"—that
is, not the abolition of classes, not the
overcoming of the opposition between town and country, but
the reactivation of factories and plants under the control of the
proletarian state, thus guaranteeing the possibility of the exchange of
goods between towns and villages. The very brevity of the timeframe
provides the key to understanding the
entire perspective without error.

Admittedly, even for this very basic task, the timeframe
set at the beginning of 1918 was too short. It was this
purely practical "blunder" that Lenin mocked at the Fourth Congress of
the Communist International when he said, "We were more stupid
then than we are now." But "we" had been right about the
overall perspective, without believing for a moment that
"socialist order" could be fully established in twelve months, especially in a backward country. Lenin was counting on three generations—on ourselves, on our children, and on our grandchildren—
to achieve this fundamental and ultimate goal.

Is it not clear that, in his 1915 article, Lenin
meant by "organization of socialist production" not the
creation of a socialist society, but an infinitely
simpler task, already accomplished by us in the USSR ? Otherwise, one
would have to arrive at the absurd conclusion that, according to Lenin, the
proletarian party, after having conquered power, "postpones" the
revolutionary war until the third generation.

This is the sad state of affairs at the fundamental bastion of the
new theory : the 1915 quotation. But what is even
sadder is that, for Lenin, this quotation did not apply
to Russia at all. He was speaking of Europe in opposition to
Russia. This is evident not only from the content of the cited article,
devoted to the United States of Europe, but from Lenin's entire attitude
at the time. A few months later, on November 20,
1915, Lenin wrote specifically about Russia :

“From this factual situation , the task of the proletariat clearly follows . A bold,
unhesitating revolutionary struggle against the monarchy (the slogans of the
January 1912 conference, “the three whales” (29)), a struggle
that would draw in all the democratic masses, that is to
say, above all, the peasantry. And at the same time
, a ruthless struggle against chauvinism, a struggle for the
socialist revolution of Europe in alliance with its proletariat… The
military crisis has strengthened the economic and
political factors that are pushing it (the petty bourgeoisie), as well as
the peasantry, to the left. This is the
objective basis that makes the victory of
the democratic revolution in Russia perfectly possible. We
need not demonstrate here that the objective conditions for the
socialist revolution are completely ripe in
Western Europe ; all influential socialists in all
advanced countries admitted this before the war.” (30)

Thus, in 1915, Lenin spoke clearly of the
democratic revolution in Russia and the socialist revolution in
Western Europe. In passing, he noted, as if it were
self-evident, that in Western Europe, unlike in the
29th century, the three main slogans of Bolshevik agitation under
Tsarism were "democratic republic," "eight-hour day," and "confiscation
of land for the benefit of the peasants." These were called "the three pillars"
or "the three whales"—alluding to the old myth that the
world rested on three whales—of Bolshevism. It was, among other things, on these
three slogans that the Bolsheviks clashed with the liquidators, whose
democratic demands were being studied for potential concessions by
Tsarism.

Russia, in contrast to Russia, the conditions for
socialist revolution “were entirely ripe.” But the authors of the
new theory, who are also the authors of the program, simply ignore
this quotation (one among many), which relates
directly to Russia ; they do the same to
hundreds of others in Lenin's complete works. On
the other hand, as we have seen, they seize upon another
quotation that relates to Western Europe and attribute to it a
meaning it cannot and does not seek to have ; they attach this
arbitrary meaning to Russia, which the quotation does not refer to ; and on this
“foundation” they erect their new theory.

How did Lenin view this question in the
period immediately preceding October ? Upon leaving
Switzerland after the February Revolution, Lenin addressed
Swiss workers in a letter in which he explained :

“Russia is a peasant country, one of the most
backward countries in Europe. Socialism cannot triumph there
directly right away. But the peasant character of the country,
given the immense agrarian land held by
the landowning nobles, can, based on
the experience of 1905, give the bourgeois and
democratic revolution in Russia an immense scope ; it can
make our revolution the prologue to the
world socialist revolution, constituting a stage that will lead
towards it… The Russian proletariat cannot, by its own
strength alone, victoriously complete the socialist revolution. But
it can give the Russian revolution such scope
that it will create the best conditions for the socialist revolution
, it will, in a way, begin it. It can make
the situation more favorable for the entry, in the
decisive battles, of its principal and most reliable collaborator, the
European and American socialist proletariat.” (31)

These lines contain all the elements of the question. If
Lenin, as we are led to believe, considered in
1915, during a period of war and reaction, that the
Russian proletariat could single-handedly build socialism and
then, having accomplished this task, declare war
on the bourgeois states, how then could Lenin, at the beginning of 1917,
when the February Revolution had already taken place,
so categorically assert the impossibility for
peasant Russia to build socialism by its own efforts ? One
would have to be at least somewhat logical and, frankly,
show some respect for Lenin.

It would be superfluous to multiply the quotations. A continuous exposition
of Lenin's views on the economic and political character of the
social revolution, conditioned by its international extension,
would require a special study ; it would include many themes,
except that of the construction in a single country of a
self-sufficient socialist society, because Lenin did
not know this subject.

We must, however, pause to consider another article
by Lenin ; indeed, the draft program seems to quote
Lenin's posthumous article, "On Cooperation," using an
expression taken out of context and unrelated to the
article's subject. We have in mind Chapter V of the draft program,
which states that the workers of the Soviet republics
"possess, within the country, the necessary
and sufficient material prerequisites... for building comprehensive socialism." (32)

If this article, dictated by Lenin during his illness and published
only after his death, actually stated that the Soviet state
possessed the material prerequisites—that is, first and foremost, the means of
production—necessary and sufficient to build
full socialism on its own, then we would only have to suppose that this was
either a slip of the tongue by Lenin during the dictation or a
stenographer's error in deciphering it. In any case, both are more
probable than Lenin's abandonment, in two random lines
, of Marxism and everything he himself had taught
during his lifetime. Fortunately, it is unnecessary to resort to this
explanation. The remarkable, though unfinished, article "On
Cooperation" is linked by a unity of thought to other, no less remarkable, articles published during the last period of Lenin's
life ;
They form, in a way, the chapters of an
unfinished book, dealing with the place of the October Revolution in the
chain of revolutions in the West and the East ; the article "On
Cooperation" does not at all say what the revisionists of Leninism so lightly attribute to it
.

Lenin explains that "mercantile" cooperation can and
must completely transform its social role in the workers' state ;
through just policy, it can guide the combination of
the peasant's particular interest and the state's general interest
along the socialist path. Lenin then lays out the
foundations of this indisputable idea :

“Indeed, the power of the State over the principal
means of production, the power of the State in the hands of the
proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the millions of
small peasants, the leadership of the peasantry ensured by this
proletariat, etc., is this not all that is needed to be
able, on the basis of cooperation, of cooperation alone
, which we formerly called mercantile, and which
we still have the right to
call so to a certain extent, now that we have the NEP, is this
not all that is necessary to build the
complete socialist society ? It is not yet the construction of
socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and
sufficient for that purpose.” (33)

The text of the quotation alone, containing the unfinished sentence
(“of cooperation alone”), proves beyond doubt that
we are dealing with an uncorrected essay, dictated
rather than handwritten by its author.
It is therefore all the more unforgivable to cling to sentences
cut from the text instead of reflecting on the article's overall meaning
. Fortunately, however, the very wording of this
quotation, and not just its spirit, demonstrates that one does not have the
right to misuse it as the authors of the
draft do. When he speaks of “necessary and sufficient conditions
,” Lenin rigorously delimits his subject in this
article. He examines only the question of by what
methods, by what processes, we will achieve socialism
without new class conflicts, starting from
dispersed and fragmented peasant farms, thanks to the existence of the foundations
of the Soviet regime. The article is entirely devoted to the
social forms of organization of the transition from small-scale
private to collective economies, and not at all to the
material conditions of production during this period. If
today the European proletariat were to prevail and provide us
with the assistance of its technology, the question of cooperation posed by
Lenin—as a social method of organization combining
private and collective interests—would retain its full
importance. Cooperation shows the way in which
technological progress (particularly electrification) can
reorganize and unite millions of peasant holdings due to
the existence of the Soviet regime ; but cooperation does
not replace this new technology, nor does it create it within itself
. As we have seen, Lenin speaks simply of the
“necessary and sufficient” conditions in general and enumerates them
precisely. These are : 1) “The power of the State
extending to all means of production” (the text reads “
applying” and is obviously not corrected). 2) "State power
in the hands of the proletariat" ; 3) the alliance of the proletariat
and many millions of peasants ; 4) "the guarantee that the
The proletariat will retain hegemony over the peasantry
… And it is only after listing these purely political conditions ( material
conditions are not even mentioned here ) that Lenin draws his conclusion : This (that is, all the listed conditions) is all that is “necessary and sufficient” for building socialist society. “All that is necessary and sufficient” on the political level—nothing more. But Lenin also adds that, for this reason, “this is not yet the building of socialist society.” Why ? Because political conditions alone, even if sufficient, do not solve the entire problem. The question of culture remains . “Nothing but” that—Lenin says ; he emphasizes the words “nothing but” and encloses them in quotation marks to show the enormous importance of what is lacking. Lenin knew as well as we do that culture is linked to technology : “To be cultured,” he said, bringing the revisionists back down to earth, “there must be a certain material basis” (34). One need only refer to the problem of electrification, which Lenin, incidentally, connected to the question of the international socialist revolution. The struggle for culture, [within the framework of ] the “necessary and sufficient” political (but not material) conditions, would absorb all our efforts were it not for the problem of the permanent and relentless struggle—economic, political, military, and cultural—between socialist society, which is being built on a backward foundation, and global capitalism, which is declining but remains powerful through its technology.

“I would say,” Lenin emphasizes, “towards the end of the
same article, “that for us the center of gravity is
shifting towards cultural work, were it not for
international relations, the duty we have to defend our
position in the international arena.” (35)

This is Lenin's true thought, even if one
considers the article on cooperation in isolation from all his
other works. How else can one describe
the formula of the authors of the draft program but as a falsification ? They
knowingly borrow from Lenin the words concerning the existence
in our country of "necessary and sufficient" conditions, but add
for their part the fundamental condition, that is, the
material condition, whereas Lenin clearly showed that it
was precisely lacking in our country, that it still had to be
achieved in conjunction with the struggle "for our positions in the
international arena," that is, with the
international proletarian revolution. This is what remains of the second and final
point of support for this theory.

We consciously refrain from repeating here the
countless articles and speeches, from 1905 to 1923,
in which Lenin affirms and repeats in the most
categorical way that without the triumphant world revolution we
are threatened with perishing ; that one cannot triumph over the
bourgeoisie from an economic point of view in a single country, and
especially in a backward country ; that the construction of socialist society
is an international task by its very essence ;
Lenin draws conclusions from this which may appear as
"pessimistic" to the creators of the new national and
reactionary utopia ; but they are sufficiently optimistic if one
considers them from the point of view of revolutionary internationalism.

We focus here only on the quotations chosen by the
project's authors themselves to create the "necessary
and sufficient" premises of their utopia. And we see that
their entire edifice collapses as soon as it is touched.

We nevertheless believe it is logical to cite here at
least one of Lenin's direct testimonies on the
contentious issue, which does not need to be explained and cannot
be misinterpreted.

“We have emphasized in a whole series of works,
in all our interventions, in all the press, that the situation
in Russia is not like that in capitalist countries : we
have a minority of workers employed in industry and
an enormous majority of small farmers. In such a
country, the social revolution can only triumph definitively
under two conditions : first, that it be supported
in due course by the social revolution of one or
more advanced countries… The other condition is the agreement
between the proletariat exercising its dictatorship or holding
state power in its hands and the majority of the
peasant population… We know that it is only
with the agreement of the peasantry that the socialist revolution in Russia can be saved
as long as the
revolution does not occur in other countries…” (36)

We hope that this passage is sufficiently enlightening :
firstly, Lenin himself emphasizes that the ideas he
sets forth were developed by him "in a whole series
of works, in all our interventions, in all the press" ;
secondly, the perspective indicated was established by Lenin not
in 1915, two years before October, but in 1921, four years
after.

We dare to believe that, as far as Lenin is concerned, the question
is sufficiently clear. It remains to be seen how the
authors of the draft program themselves envisioned it
in the past.

Stalin said about this in November 1926 :

"The party has always accepted as a starting point that
the victory of socialism in one country (is) the possibility
of building socialism there, and that this task can be
accomplished by the forces of one country." (37)

We already know that the party never accepted this as a
starting point. On the contrary, in "a whole series of works,
in all our interventions, in all the press," as
Lenin said, the party based itself on a contrary position which found
its fundamental expression precisely in the program of the
Communist Party of the USSR. But we must hope that Stalin
himself, at least, "always" started from the false idea
that "socialism can be built by the forces of a single
country." Let's examine this.

We have absolutely no idea how Stalin viewed this
question in 1905 or 1915, as we completely lack
documents on the subject. But, in 1924, Stalin outlined
Lenin's views on the construction of socialism in these terms :

“Overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and establishing the
power of the proletariat in one country does not
yet guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The principal
task of socialism—the organization of socialist production—
remains to be accomplished. Can this
problem be solved, can the final victory of socialism be achieved
in one country without the combined efforts of the
proletarians of several advanced countries ? No, it is impossible
. To overthrow the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one
country are sufficient, as the history of our revolution testifies. For
the final victory of socialism, for the organization of
socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially of a
peasant country like Russia, are no longer sufficient ; the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary
… These
are, in general, the characteristic features of the
Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.” (38)

It must be admitted : "the characteristic features of
Leninist theory" are indeed set forth here with considerable accuracy.

In later editions of Stalin's book, however, this
passage was revised in a directly opposite direction, and "the
characteristic features of Leninist theory" were
denounced a year later as... Trotskyism. The plenary session of the
Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted its
resolution, conforming not to the 1924 edition but to that
of 1926.

Such is Stalin's situation. It could not be
worse. It is true that one might still find some consolation if the
plenary session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International
were not also in an equally
lamentable situation.

One last hope remains : that at least Bukharin, the
true author of the program, "always accepted
as a starting point" the possibility of achieving socialism
in one country. Let's check.

Here is what Bukharin wrote about this in 1917 :

“Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Only the proletariat, even in backward Russia, can be
the irreplaceable engineer of this locomotive. But the
proletariat can no longer remain within the limits of the
property relations of bourgeois society. It is marching
toward power and toward socialism. Yet this task
, which in Russia too is ‘on the agenda,' cannot
be accomplished ‘within national borders.'
Here the working class encounters an insurmountable wall
(note well : an insurmountable wall. LT) that
can only be breached by the battering ram of the
international workers' revolution.” (39)

One could not express oneself more clearly. Such was Bukharin's opinion in 1917, two years after Lenin's
supposed "reversal" in 1915. Yet, had the October Revolution taught Bukharin nothing new ?

Let's check that.

In 1919, Bukharin wrote about "The Dictatorship of the
Proletariat in Russia and the World Revolution" in the
theoretical organ of the Communist International :

"Given the existence of the world economy and
the relations between its parts, given the interdependence
of the various bourgeois groups organized into states, it goes
without saying (emphasis added) that the struggle in an isolated country cannot
be completed unless a decisive victory has been won
by one of these parties in several civilized countries."

At that time, it was even "taken for granted". Further on :

"Pre-war Marxist or Marxist-leaning literature
repeatedly raised the question of whether
the victory of socialism was possible in a single country. The
majority of authors answered in the negative (and what about Lenin
in 1915 ? LT), from which it is not possible to
deduce that it is impossible or inadmissible to begin
a revolution and seize power in an
isolated country."

Precisely !

The same article went on to say :

"The period of progress of the productive forces
can only come with the victory of the proletariat in several
important countries... From which we conclude : it is necessary to
develop by all means the world revolution and
to form a solid economic bloc between the
industrial countries and Soviet Russia." (40)

Bukharin's assertion that the rise of productive forces
— that is, the true rise of socialism—will only take hold
in our country after the victory of the proletariat in the advanced countries
of Europe, is precisely the phrase that forms the basis of all the
indictments leveled against "Trotskyism," including those
presented at the Seventh Plenum of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International. What is curious, however, is that Bukharin
, whose survival is due to his short memory, intervenes as
the accuser. Alongside this comical aspect, there is another,
tragic one : it is Lenin who is in the hot seat, he who expressed
this same basic idea dozens of times.
Finally, in 1921, six years after Lenin's alleged change of heart
in 1915, four years after October, the Central Committee,
with Lenin at its head, approved the program of the Communist Youth
established by a commission under the direction of Bukharin.

Paragraph 4 of this program states :

“In the USSR, state power is already in
the hands of the working class. During three years of
heroic struggle against world capital, the proletariat has maintained
and strengthened Soviet power. Although Russia
possesses immense natural resources, it is nevertheless,
from an industrial point of view, a backward country
dominated by a petty-bourgeois population. It can only
achieve socialism through the
world proletarian revolution, in the era of development into
which we have entered.”

This single paragraph from the
Communist Youth program (not from a one-off article, but from the program itself
!) makes
the attempts by the drafters to demonstrate that the party has
"always" considered the building of socialism possible
in a single country, and more specifically in Russia, appear ridiculous and truly unworthy. If this had
"always" been the case, why did Bukharin formulate
this paragraph of the Communist Youth program in this way ?

Where was Stalin looking at that moment ? How
could Lenin and the entire Central Committee have approved such heresy ?
How could no one in the party have noticed this "detail"
and questioned it ? Doesn't all this seem like
a bad joke, increasingly ridiculing
the party, its history, and the Communist International ?

Isn't it time to put an end to this ? Isn't it time to tell the
revisionists : stop hiding
behind Lenin and the party's theoretical tradition !
At the plenary session of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International, Bukharin, who escaped thanks to his short
memory, arguing in favor of the resolution condemning
"Trotskyism," declared :

"Comrade Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution
(and Comrade Trotsky still professes
this theory now) also says that because of our
backward economic situation, we will inevitably perish without
world revolution." (41)

I had spoken in plenary session about the shortcomings in the theory of
permanent revolution as I had formulated it in 1905-1906.

But it goes without saying that I had not even considered giving up what
was fundamental about it, what brought me
closer to Lenin, which now prevents me
from accepting the revision of Leninism.

There were two fundamental ideas in the theory of
permanent revolution.

First : despite Russia's historical backwardness, the
revolution can return power to the Russian proletariat before
handing it over to the proletariat of the advanced countries. Second : to
overcome the contradictions that the dictatorship
of the proletariat will encounter in a backward country, surrounded by a world
of capitalist enemies, it will be necessary to enter the arena of
world revolution. The first of these ideas is based on a
correct understanding of the law of uneven development. The second
on an accurate understanding of the indissolubility of the
economic and political ties linking capitalist countries.
Bukharin is right when he says that I still profess
these two fundamental theses of the theory of
permanent revolution today. Now more than ever. For I
consider them to be entirely verified and demonstrated,
theoretically, by the complete works of Marx and Lenin,
and practically, by the experience of the
October Revolution.

6. So where is the "social-democratic deviation" ?

These quotations and reminders are more than sufficient to
characterize the theoretical position of Stalin and Bukharin,
both then and now. But to characterize their
political methods, it must be remembered that after gleaning from the writings of
the Opposition⁴² statements entirely analogous to those
they themselves made up until 1925 (at that time in
perfect agreement with Lenin), Stalin and Bukharin,
relying on these quotations, constructed the theory of our “
social-democratic deviation.” Thus, on the essential problem of the
relationship between October and the international revolution, the Opposition
supposedly thinks like Otto Bauer⁴³, who denies the possibility of
building socialism in Russia. One might truly
believe that the printing press was invented only in 1924 and that everything
preceding it is destined for oblivion. They are counting on short memories.

Yet, already at the Fourth Congress, on the nature of the
October Revolution, the Communist International settled
accounts with Otto Bauer and other philistines of the Second International.
The report I presented on behalf of the Central Committee, on the
NEP and the prospects for world revolution, offered a
judgment on Otto Bauer's stance that expressed the views of
our Central Committee at the time ; it met with no objections
at the Congress, and I believe it has retained all its
force to this day. As for Bukharin, he refrained from
clarifying the political aspect of the problem since "many
comrades, including Lenin and Trotsky," had already
addressed it ; in other words, Bukharin then aligned himself with
my report. This is what I said about Otto Bauer at the
Fourth Congress :

“Social-democratic theorists who, on the one hand,
admit in their Sunday articles that capitalism
, especially in Europe, survives and has become a
brake on historical development, and on the other hand, express
the certainty that the evolution of Soviet Russia
inevitably leads to the victory of bourgeois democracy
, thus fall into the most
pitifully banal contradiction, quite worthy of these obtuse and boastful confounders
. The NEP is calculated for specific conditions
of time and place : it is a maneuver of
the workers' state still living in a capitalist environment and
firmly counting on revolutionary development.”

of Europe. In political calculations, one cannot
neglect a factor like time. If we accept
that capitalism will last another century or
half a century in Europe, and that Soviet Russia
will have to adapt its economic policy accordingly, then the question resolves
itself, because, in this scenario, we assume a
priori that the proletarian revolution in Europe will fail
and that a new era of capitalist revival will
begin. On what basis would we accept
this hypothesis ? If Otto Bauer discovered
miraculous symptoms of
capitalist resurrection in present-day Austria, then the fate of Soviet Russia
is sealed. But in the meantime, we see no
miracles, and we do not believe in them. From our point of view, if
the European bourgeoisie were to secure power for several
decades under the current world conditions,
this would lead not to a new flowering of capitalism,
but to the economic decomposition and cultural disintegration
of Europe. Generally speaking, it is undeniable
that such a process could also drag
Soviet Russia into the abyss. Would it pass through the stage of
“democracy,” or would its decomposition take other
forms ? This is already a secondary question
. But we see no reason to subscribe to
Spengler's philosophy.⁴⁵ We firmly rely on
the revolutionary development of Europe. The new
economic policy is merely an adaptation to the pace of this
development.⁴⁶

This way of posing the question brings us back to the point from
which we began to judge the draft program : in
the age of imperialism, one can only consider the destiny of an
isolated country by starting from the trends of world development,
which is a whole in which this country, with its
national particularities, is included, and on which it depends. The theorists of the
Second International isolate the USSR from the rest of the world and
from the imperialist era ; they apply to the USSR, as an
isolated country, the arid criterion of economic “maturity” ; they
establish that the USSR is not capable of building
socialism by its own strength alone, and deduce from this the inevitability of
the capitalist degeneration of the workers' state.
The authors of the draft program place themselves on the same
theoretical ground ; they fully accept the
metaphysical methodology of the social-democratic theorists : just
like them, they “abstract” from the rest of the world and from
the imperialist era ; They take as their starting point the
fiction of isolated development ; they apply the arid economic criterion to the national stage
of the world revolution ; however,
their "sentence" is the inverse of the latter's. The "leftism" of
the project's authors consists in their inverting the
social-democratic judgment. Yet, however
the theorists of the Second International frame the question,
it is worthless. We must follow Lenin, who dismisses
Bauer's judgment and diagnosis as exercises worthy of a
preparatory-level student.

This is what the "social-democratic deviation" is all about. It
's not us, but the authors of the project, who should be considered
among Bauer's relatives.

7. The USSR's dependence on the world economy

It was Vollmar (47) himself who was the precursor of the preachers
of the national socialist society. In outlining, in his
article entitled "The Isolated Socialist State" (48), the prospect of the
construction of socialism in Germany by the proletariat's own forces
(which had far surpassed
advanced England), Vollmar, in 1878, referred with
absolute clarity and precision to the law of uneven development, which, according to
Stalin, was unknown to Marx and Engels. Vollmar deduced
(in 1878) from this law the following indisputable conclusion :

"Under the current conditions,
which will remain so for the foreseeable future
, the hypothesis of a simultaneous victory of socialism
in all civilized countries is absolutely excluded..."

Developing this idea further, Vollmar said :

"We thus arrive at the isolated socialist state, about
which I hope to have demonstrated that if it is not the
only possible one, it is at least the most probable..."
Insofar as one can understand here by isolated state
only a state of proletarian dictatorship, Vollmar sets forth
an indisputable thought which was that of Marx and Engels and which
Lenin expressed in the 1915 article cited above.

But then come findings made by Vollmar
himself, formulated, moreover, in a less one-sided
and erroneous manner than that of our theorists of socialism in one
country. To construct his argument, Vollmar begins with the
premise that socialist Germany would maintain
close economic ties with the global capitalist economy,
while also benefiting from the advantages of superior technology
and low production costs. Such a
construct rests on the prospect of the peaceful coexistence
of the socialist and capitalist systems. However, the further socialism
progresses, the more its enormous advantages from the standpoint of
production will become apparent, and the need for world revolution will disappear
of its own accord : socialism will triumph over capitalism through the
market, by means of low prices.

Bukharin, author of the first draft program and co-
author of the second, bases his entire construction of
socialism in one country on the idea of an isolated,
self-contained economy. In Bukharin's article entitled :

"On the character of our revolution and the possibility of the
victorious construction of socialism in the USSR" (49), which
constitutes the supreme product of scholasticism, multiplied by
sophistry, the whole reasoning taking place within the framework
of an isolated economy, the main and only argument is the
following :

“Since we have everything necessary and
sufficient to build socialism, consequently,
in the very process of this construction, there is
no point at which this construction becomes
impossible. If we have within our country a
combination of forces such that, year after
year, the preponderance of the socialist sector of our
economy is affirmed, if the socialized sectors of our
economy grow faster than those of
private capitalism, we begin each new year with
increased strength.” (49)

It's an irrefutable argument : "Since we have
everything that is necessary and sufficient," then... we have it.
Taking the results of this demonstration as his starting point,
Bukharin constructs a fully developed system of a closed socialist economy
, with no external inputs or outputs. Bukharin, like
Stalin, only remembers the external environment—that is,
the entire world—in order to view it from the perspective of
military intervention. When Bukharin speaks in this
article of the need to "disregard" the international factor
, he has military intervention in mind, not the global market . He doesn't need to disregard it because he simply forgets it
throughout his entire framework. According to this scheme, Bukharin defended at the 14th Congress the idea that, if no intervention were to hinder it, we would build socialism "even at a snail's pace." The ceaseless struggle between two systems, the fact that socialism can only be based on superior productive forces—in short, the Marxist dynamic of replacing one social formation with another, based on the growth of productive forces—all of this was completely discarded . Revolutionary and historical dialectics were replaced by the reactionary utopia of nibbling away at a self-contained socialism, built on an inferior technological base, evolving at a snail's pace within national borders, and having no relationship with the outside world other than the fear of intervention. Rejecting this pitiful caricature of the doctrines of Marx and Lenin was labeled a " social-democratic deviation." It was in Bukharin's article, to which we refer, that this characterization of our views was first highlighted , with supporting "arguments." History will record that we were condemned for "social-democratic deviation" because we refused to accept a reversal of Vollmar's theory of socialism in one country, which made it even worse.

The proletariat of Tsarist Russia would not have seized
power in October if Russia had not been a link—the
weakest, but a link nonetheless—in the chain of the
world economy. The proletariat's conquest of power in
no way isolated the Soviet Republic from the international division
of labor created by capitalism.

Just as the wise owl only flies away at dusk,
so too did the theory of socialism in one country arise at a
time when our industry, increasingly depleting the old
basic capital that crystallized two-thirds of
our industry's dependence on that of the world, had an urgent need to
renew and extend its links with the outside world, and at a
time when the problems of foreign trade were
clearly facing the management of the economy.

At the 11th Congress, that is to say the last congress where
Lenin was able to speak, he warned the party in due course that
it would have to undergo a new examination, "an examination organized by
the Russian market and the world market, to which we
are subordinate, with which we are bound, and from which no one
can extricate themselves." (50)

Nothing strikes the theory of
isolated "integral socialism" so cruelly as the simple fact that our foreign trade figures
have become, in recent
years, the cornerstone of our economic plans. "The
weakest part" of our entire economy, including our
industry, is imports, which depend entirely on exports
. Since the strength of a chain depends on its weakest link
, the proportions of our economic plans are tailored to
those of imports.

We read in an article devoted to the system of/establishment
of the plan, published in the State Planning Review :

"In establishing the control figures for the
current year, we had to, methodologically, take
as a starting point our export and
import plans, use them as a guide to
establish a whole series of plans for various branches of
industry, and consequently the entire general industrial plan
, and in particular align the construction
of new factories, etc." (51)

This way of approaching the question according to the method of the
State Plan undoubtedly means that the control figures
determine the direction and pace of our economic development
, but that the control of these figures has already shifted towards
the world economy : this is so, not because we
have become weaker, but because, becoming
stronger, we have broken free from the vicious circle of isolation
.

Through export and import figures, the
capitalist world shows us that it has other means of
reacting besides military intervention. Since the productivity of labor and
of the social system as a whole is measured under
market conditions by the price ratio, the
Soviet economy is more threatened by an influx of
cheap capitalist goods than by military intervention
. For this reason alone, it is by no means a matter of
achieving an isolated economic triumph over one's "own"
bourgeoisie. "The socialist revolution advancing throughout the world
will not consist merely in the proletariat of
each country triumphing over its bourgeoisie" (52). It is a
match, a life-or-death struggle, between two social systems, one of which
began to be built upon backward productive forces,
while the other still rests today
upon productive forces of infinitely greater power
.

Anyone who labels as "pessimistic" the recognition that
we depend on the world market (Lenin frankly said
that we are subordinate to it), betrays all his
provincial petty-bourgeois pusillanimity in the face of the world market and the
pathetic nature of his local optimism, which hopes to escape
this market by hiding under the bushes, by getting out
of trouble by his own means.

The new theory considers it a matter of honor
the bizarre idea that the USSR could perish as a result of
military intervention, but in no way as a result of its
economic backwardness. But since, in a
socialist society, the working masses must be far more willing
to defend the country than the slaves of capital are to attack it, the
question arises : how could we perish as a result of
military intervention ? Because the enemy is infinitely stronger
from a technical point of view. Bukharin only acknowledges the superiority
of the productive forces in their technical, military aspect. He
refuses to understand that the Ford tractor is just as
dangerous as the Creusot cannon, with the difference that the
latter can only act sporadically, while the former
is constantly under pressure. Moreover, the tractor knows that it has
the cannon behind it as its last resort.

We, the first workers' state, are part of the
world proletariat and, with it, we depend on
global capitalism. Indifferent, neutral, neutered by bureaucrats, this convenient
little word "ties" is only used to conceal
the extremely painful and dangerous nature of
these "ties" for us. If we produced at world market prices,
our dependence on it, while still a
dependence, would be infinitely less severe than it is now.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. The monopoly on
foreign trade itself testifies to the cruel and dangerous nature
of our dependence. The decisive importance of this monopoly
for our construction of socialism stems precisely
from a balance of power unfavorable to us. But we cannot
forget for a single moment that the monopoly on foreign trade
only formalizes our dependence on the world market,
but does not eliminate it.

"As long as our Soviet republic,"
wrote Lenin, "remains a borderland, isolated from the whole
capitalist world, to believe in our
complete economic independence, in the disappearance of certain dangers, would be
to demonstrate a fanciful and utopian spirit." (53)

The fundamental dangers stem from the
objective situation of the USSR, an "isolated stepping stone" in the
hostile capitalist economy. However, these perils can increase or decrease.
This depends on the interplay of two factors : our
socialist construction on the one hand, and the evolution of the capitalist economy
on the other. Certainly, in the final analysis, it is the second
factor—that is, the fate of the entire world economy—
that is of decisive importance.

Could it happen, and under what specific circumstances, that the productivity of
our social system increasingly lags behind that of
capitalism ? For ultimately, this would inevitably lead
to the collapse of the socialist republic. If we manage
our economy scientifically during this new phase, in which we must create the foundation of industry
ourselves —a process that demands far greater qualities from management—the productivity of our labor will increase. Can we, however, assume that the labor productivity of capitalist countries, or, more precisely, of the predominantly capitalist countries, will grow faster than ours ?

If this question is not answered in a way that takes
perspectives into account, the boastful claims that
our pace is sufficient "in itself" (not to
mention the ridiculous philosophy of "turtle-like movement") are
meaningless. But the mere attempt to answer the problem
of competition between the two systems leads us into
the arena of world economics and politics ; in this
arena, it is the Revolutionary International, including the
Soviet republic, that acts and decides, and by no means a
Soviet republic living for itself and resorting from
time to time to the International's aid.

The draft program stated, regarding the state-run economy
of the USSR, that it was "developing heavy industry at a pace
exceeding that of development in
capitalist countries." In this attempt to compare the two paces, it
must be acknowledged that a step forward was taken in the realm of
principles, compared to the period when the authors of the program
categorically denied the need for a comparative factor
between our development and that of the world. It is pointless "to
mix the international factor into these problems," Stalin said.
We will build socialism "even at a tortoise's pace,"
Bukharin declared. It was precisely on the basis of this line of reasoning
that the discussions of principle unfolded over
several years. From a formal point of view, this line
prevailed. But if we do not merely insert into the text a
comparison between the different paths of economic development
, and if we grasp the essential nature of the problem, we
will see that we cannot discuss the project
of "a sufficient minimum of industry" in another chapter, based solely on
internal relations, without any connection to the capitalist world ;
we cannot not only resolve a priori, but even pose the
question of whether it is "possible" or "impossible" for the
proletariat of the country in question to build socialism by its
own strength. The question is resolved by the dynamics of the
struggle between two systems, between two world classes ; despite the
high coefficients of our growth during the
reconstruction period, one essential and indisputable fact remains :

“Capital, if considered on a global scale,
continues to be stronger than the power
of the Soviets, not only militarily but also economically
. This fundamental thesis must
be taken as our starting point and never forgotten.” 54
The problem of the relationship between the different paths
is not resolved. It does not depend solely on our know-how
in addressing the real smychka (55), ensuring grain storage, and
intensifying exports and imports ; in other words, it
does not depend solely on our domestic successes, which are certainly
a factor of exceptional importance in this struggle ; but it
is also linked to the course of the world economy and revolution
. Consequently, the question will be decided not within the confines of a single nation, but on the arena of global economic and political
struggle .

Thus, on almost every point of the draft
program, we see a direct or disguised concession
made to the criticism of the Opposition. This "concession"
manifests itself in a rapprochement with Marx and Lenin in the
theoretical sphere ; but the revisionist conclusions remain
entirely independent of revolutionary theses.

8. The contradiction between productive forces and national borders
, the cause of the utopian and reactionary character of the theory of
socialism in one country.

The argument for the theory of socialism in one
country, as we have seen, boils down, on the one hand, to a
sophistic interpretation of a few lines by Lenin, and on the other hand, to
a scholastic explanation of "the law of uneven development." By
judiciously interpreting both this historical law and the
quotations in question, we arrive at a directly
opposite conclusion, the one reached by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all of us, including
Stalin and Bukharin, until 1925.

From the uneven and jerky development of capitalism stems
the uneven, jerky character of the socialist revolution ; while
from the mutual interdependence of the various countries, pushed to a
very advanced degree, stems the impossibility not only political
, but also economic, of building socialism in a
single country.

Let's examine the program text once again from this perspective, and more closely . We already read in the introduction :

"Imperialism... intensifies, to the point of
extreme tension, the contradictions existing between the growth
of the national economy's productive forces and
the barriers separating nations and states."

We have already stated that this thesis was, or rather should
be, the cornerstone of an international program. But it
excludes, refutes, and dismisses a priori the theory of
socialism in one country as a reactionary theory,
because it is in irreconcilable contradiction not only with the
fundamental tendency of the evolution of the productive forces,
but also with the material results that this development has
already achieved. The productive forces are incompatible with
national frameworks. This fact governs not only
foreign trade, the export of people and capital, the
conquest of territories, colonial policy, and the latest
imperialist war, but also the economic impossibility
for a socialist state to exist in isolation. The
productive forces of capitalist countries have long been confined within
the limits of the nation-state. As for socialist society
, it can only be built on the basis of the
most progressive productive forces : electrification, the "chemicalization
" of production processes, including agriculture, the
combination and generalization of the superior elements of the
most advanced contemporary technology. Since Marx, we
have constantly reiterated that capitalism is incapable of
mastering the spirit of the new technology it itself brought
into being ; a spirit that not only explodes the
legal framework of private bourgeois property, but
also, as the war of 1914 demonstrated, shatters the national structure
of the bourgeois state. Socialism, therefore, must not only
reclaim from capitalism the most developed productive forces
, but immediately take them further, elevate them, and
develop them to a degree that was never possible under
capitalism. How then, one might ask, will socialism
push back the productive forces to force them
within the limits of the nation-state from which they were already
furiously trying to escape under capitalism ? Or perhaps
we must renounce the "untamed" productive forces that
are confined within the national framework, and consequently also within
that of the theory of socialism in one country ? Must
we limit ourselves to productive forces that are somehow
domesticated, in other words, to a backward economic technique
? But then we must, from now on, in a whole
series of branches, no longer rise, but fall below
even the pitiful current technical level, which has managed to
indissolubly link bourgeois Russia to the world economy and
lead it to participate in the imperialist war, that is to say, a
war to enlarge its territory to the measure of the productive forces
that have overflowed the framework of the nation-state.

The workers' state, inheriting these forces and having
reconstituted them, is forced to export and import.
The unfortunate problem is that the draft program merely
mechanically introduces into its text the thesis of the incompatibility
of current capitalist technology with national frameworks ;
then it reasons as if this
incompatibility were entirely irrelevant. Essentially, this entire project is nothing more than a combination
of ready-made revolutionary theses from Marx and Lenin and
opportunist or centrist conclusions that are utterly irreconcilable
with these theses. This is why it is necessary, without being
seduced by a few isolated revolutionary formulas in the
project, to clearly discern the direction in which its
essential tendencies are heading.

We have already quoted the passage from the first chapter, which speaks
of the possibility of the triumph of socialism in "a single
capitalist country, taken in isolation." This idea is expressed more clearly
and more bluntly in the fourth chapter, where it is stated
that :

"The dictatorship (?) of the world proletariat... can only
be achieved after the victory of socialism (?) in
various countries, when the newly formed proletarian republics
federate with those already existing."

If we interpret the words "victory of socialism" simply
as another name for the dictatorship of the proletariat
, then it is merely an indisputable commonplace that
should have been better formulated in the program to
avoid a double meaning. But this is not the
intention of the project's authors. By victory of
socialism, they mean not simply the conquest of power and the
nationalization of the means of production, but the construction
of a socialist society in a single country. If we accept this
interpretation, we are faced not with a
world socialist economy based on an international division of
labor, but with a federation of socialist communes,
each with its own goal, along the lines of
blessed anarchism, only extending the boundaries of
these communes to those of the nation-state.

The draft program, in its anxious desire to
eclecticistically conceal the new way of approaching the question with
old formulas that are familiar, resorts to the
following thesis : "Only after the complete victory of the proletariat
in the world, after its world power has been consolidated,
will there come a lasting era of intense construction of
the world socialist economy." (Chapter IV).

This thesis, intended to serve as theoretical camouflage,
actually reveals the essential contradiction. If, in the thesis
under consideration, one means that the era of genuine
socialist construction can only begin after the victory of the
proletariat in at least several advanced countries, then one simply abandons
the theory of building socialism in a
single country, and adopts the position of Marx and Lenin.

But if we take as our starting point the new
Stalin-Bukharin theory, which took root in various parts of the
program, we have as our prospect the realization of
integral socialism in several different countries before the
total and worldwide victory of the proletariat ; and it is with these socialist countries
that the world socialist economy will be built, exactly
in the way that children build their house with
ready-made blocks. In reality, the world socialist economy
will by no means be the sum of national socialist economies.

It can only be constituted, in its essential features, on the
very basis of the global division of labor created by all the
previous development of capitalism. Its foundations
will be formed and rebuilt not after the construction of
"integral socialism" in a series of countries, but in the
hurricanes and storms of the world proletarian revolution
that will occupy several decades. The economic successes
achieved by the first countries of the proletarian dictatorship will
not be measured by the degree to which they approach
self-contained "integral socialism," but rather by the
political stability of the dictatorship itself and the successes obtained in
preparing the elements of the future world socialist economy
.

Revisionist thinking is expressed with greater precision, and
consequently, with even greater brutality, if possible, in the
fifth chapter ; hiding behind a line and a half of
Lenin's posthumous article which they distort, the authors of the
draft program assert that the U.S.S.R. "possesses in the
country the necessary and sufficient material bases, not only
to overthrow the landowners and the bourgeoisie,
but also to build integral socialism."

Under what circumstances have we inherited
such exceptional historical privileges ? We read about this
in the second chapter of the project :

"The imperialist front was broken (by the 1917 revolution
) in its weakest link, Tsarist Russia"
(emphasis added).

This is a magnificent phrase by Lenin. Essentially, it
means that Russia was the most backward and
economically weakest imperialist state. This is precisely why
Russia's ruling classes were the
first to collapse, having burdened the country's insufficient productive forces
with an unbearable load. Uneven, stop-start development
forced the proletariat of the most
backward imperialist power to seize power first. We were once
taught that, precisely for this reason, the working class
of the "weakest link" would encounter greater
difficulties in achieving socialism than the proletariat of the
advanced countries ; it would have more difficulty seizing power, but
having achieved it long before we had closed
the gap, it would not only overtake us but would
pull us along in the process of building genuine
socialism based on
superior global technology and the international division of labor. This was the
conception with which we entered the
October Revolution, a conception that the party formulated tens and
hundreds of thousands of times in the press and at
meetings, but which, since 1925, has been subjected to attempts to replace with a
diametrically opposed idea. Now it is clear that the fact
that the former Tsarist Russia was "the weakest link"
places in the hands of the proletariat of the USSR, with Tsarist Russia
and its inherited weaknesses, an invaluable advantage : that
of possessing its own national foundations for "building
comprehensive socialism."

Unfortunate England does not enjoy such a privilege,
due to the excessive development of its productive forces,
which require almost the entire world to obtain raw materials and sell their products. If England's productive
forces were more "moderate," maintaining a relative balance between industry and agriculture, then perhaps the English proletariat could build full-fledged socialism on its island "considered in isolation," protected by its fleet against foreign intervention.

The draft program, in its fourth chapter,
divides capitalist states into three groups : 1. “Countries of
advanced capitalism (United States, Germany, England, etc.)” ;
2. “Countries where capitalism has reached a
medium level of development (Russia before 1917, Poland, etc.)” ; 3. “
Colonial and semi-colonial countries (China, India, etc.).”
Although “Russia before 1917” is infinitely closer
to present-day China than to the United States today, one
might not raise any special objections to this
schematic division were it not for the fact that, in conjunction with other parts
of the draft, it becomes a source of false conclusions. Since the
draft considers that countries of “medium development” possess
“a sufficient minimum of industry” to build
socialism on their own, this must be even more
true for countries of advanced capitalism. It turns out that only
colonial and semi-colonial countries need outside help
; this is precisely what the program project,
as we will see in another chapter, finds its
distinctive feature.

However, if we approach the problems of building
socialism with this single criterion, disregarding
the country's natural resources, the internal relationship between industry
and agriculture, and its place in the global
economic system, we will fall into further
, no less egregious, errors and contradictions. We have just spoken of
England. It is undeniably a country of
advanced capitalism, and it is precisely for this reason that it has no
chance of successfully building socialism within
its insular borders. England, subjected to a blockade,
would suffocate within a few months.

Superior productive forces, all other things
being equal, certainly present an enormous advantage for
the construction of socialism. They imbue the economy with
exceptional flexibility, even when it is isolated
by blockade ; this was evident in bourgeois Germany
during the war. But for these advanced countries, the construction
of socialism on national bases would correspond to a
general decline, an overall reduction of productive forces, that is
to say, would run directly counter to the tasks of socialism.
The draft program neglects the fundamental thesis concerning
the incompatibility of current productive forces and national borders
: it follows that superior productive forces
are no less of an obstacle to the construction of socialism
in a single country than underdeveloped forces, although for
the opposite reasons : if the latter are insufficient for their
base, it is conversely their base that is too restricted (within the
country) for the former. We forget the law of
unequal development precisely when we need it most and when it is
most important.

The problem of building socialism cannot be solved
simply by the country's industrial "maturity" or "immaturity
." This immaturity is itself uneven. Thus,
in the USSR, where certain branches of industry, primarily
machine manufacturing, are woefully inadequate to meet
even the most basic needs, others, on the other hand, cannot
, under the given circumstances, develop without
substantial and ever-increasing exports. Among these
exports, some are of paramount importance, such as
forestry, oil extraction, and manganese mining
, not to mention agriculture. Furthermore, the
"insufficient" sectors will no longer be able to develop effectively
if the sectors that produce in (relative) "surplus"
cannot export. The impossibility of building
an isolated socialist society—not in Utopia or
Atlantis, but within the concrete, geographical,
and historical conditions of our earthly economy—is determined in
various countries to varying degrees, as much by the
insufficient development of certain sectors as by the “excessive” development
of others. Overall, this means
precisely that contemporary productive forces are
incompatible with national frameworks.

“What was the imperialist war ? A revolt of the
productive forces, not only against the bourgeois forms
of property, but also against the frameworks of
capitalist states. The imperialist war meant, in fact,
that the productive forces were found unbearably
confined within the limits of nation-states. We have
always maintained that capitalism is not capable of
controlling the productive forces it has developed, that
only socialism is capable of incorporating them, when,
after their growth, they exceed the framework of
nation-states, into a superior economic whole. There are no
longer any paths that lead back to an
isolated state…” (57)

In attempting to justify the theory of socialism in one
country, the draft program makes a double, triple,
quadruple error : it exaggerates the level of productive forces in the
USSR ; it turns a blind eye to the law of uneven development
of the various branches of industry ; it neglects the
global division of labor ; and finally, it forgets the fundamental contradiction
existing between productive forces and national barriers
in the imperialist era.

In order not to leave out of our examination a single
argument, we still need to recall one more consideration, the
most general one in fact, emanating from Bukharin in his defense
of the new theory.

Throughout the world, Bukharin said, the relationship between
the proletariat and the peasantry is no more favorable than in the
USSR. Therefore, if, due to reasons of delayed development
, socialism could not be built in the USSR, it
is also unrealizable on the scale of the world economy.

This argument should be introduced into all dialectic textbooks
as a classic example of a scholastic reasoning process
.

Firstly, while it is very likely that the relationship between the
proletariat and the peasantry throughout the world does
not differ so much from that which exists in the USSR, the
world revolution, like the revolution in a country, is by no
means achieved according to the method of the arithmetic mean.

Thus, the October Revolution occurred and took hold primarily
in proletarian Petrograd, without selecting a region where the
ratio of workers to peasants corresponded to the average for
all of Russia. After Petrograd, and later Moscow,
established the revolutionary power and army, they
still had to fight for several years to overthrow the
bourgeoisie throughout the country ; only as a result of this
process, which is called revolution, was the current ratio between the proletariat and the peasantry established within the
borders of the USSR
. Revolution is not accomplished according to the method
of arithmetic averages. It may even begin in
a less favorable sector ; but as long as it has
not been consolidated in the most decisive sectors of both the
national and world fronts, one cannot speak of its
definitive victory.

Secondly, the relationship between the proletariat and the peasantry
within the framework of an "average" level of technology is
not the sole determining factor. The class struggle
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie still exists. The USSR is
surrounded not by a working-class and peasant world, but by a
capitalist universe. If the bourgeoisie were overthrown worldwide
, it goes without saying that this fact in itself would not
yet alter either the relationship between the proletariat and the peasantry or the
average level of technology in the USSR or the world
. Nevertheless, the construction of socialism in the USSR
would immediately open up new possibilities and
take on a completely different scope, entirely beyond comparison
with its current state.

Third : if the productive forces of each
advanced country have exceeded national borders to any degree
, then, according to Bukharin, it must be concluded that the
productive forces of all countries have exceeded the limits of the Earth
and, consequently, that socialism must be
built only on the scale of the entire solar system.
We repeat : Bukharin's argument based on the
average proportion of workers and peasants should be
introduced into political primers, not, as
is probably the case now, to defend the theory
of socialism in one country, but as proof of
the total incompatibility between casuistry and Marxist dialectics
.

9. The question can only be decided in the arena of
world revolution

The new doctrine states : socialism can be built
on the basis of a nation-state, provided that no
intervention occurs. From this can and must follow, despite all the
solemn declarations of the draft program, a policy
of collaboration with the bourgeoisie of other countries. The goal is
to avoid intervention : indeed, this will ensure the construction of
socialism and thus the fundamental historical problem will be
resolved. The task of the parties of the Communist International
then takes on a secondary character : to protect the USSR from
interventions, and not to fight for the conquest of power. These
are obviously not subjective intentions, but the
objective logic of political thought.

"The divergence," said Stalin, "consists in the fact that the
party considers that these (internal) contradictions and
possible conflicts are perfectly surmountable on the basis of the
very forces of our revolution, while Comrade
Trotsky and the Opposition believe that they can only be triumphed
over on an international scale, in the arena of the
world revolution of the proletariat." (58)

Yes, the divergence is expressed precisely in these terms. The contradiction between national-reformism and revolutionary internationalism
could not be formulated more precisely . If our difficulties, obstacles, and internal contradictions, which are merely a reflection of global contradictions, can be resolved simply by "the forces of our revolution itself," without entering "the arena of world revolution," then the International is a semi-auxiliary , semi-decorative institution whose congresses can be convened every four years, every ten years, or not at all. If we also add that the proletariat of other countries must protect our construction against military intervention, the International should, according to this model, play the role of an instrument of pacifism. Its fundamental role, that of an instrument of world revolution, inevitably recedes into the background. And, we repeat, this occurs not according to conscious intentions (on the contrary, a whole series of passages in the program testify to the authors' best intentions) but as a consequence of the internal logic of the new theory ; which is a thousand times more dangerous than the worst subjective intentions.

Indeed, even in preparation for the plenum of the Executive Committee of
the Communist International, Stalin had dared to develop and
demonstrate the following idea :

"Our party has no right to deceive (!) the
working class ; it should have said frankly that the lack of
certainty (!) about the possibility of building socialism
in our country leads to the abandonment of power, to the
transformation of our party from a governing party into
an opposition party." (59)

This means : “You only have the right to hope in the
meager resources of the national economy ; you cannot
hope for anything from the inexhaustible resources of the
international proletariat. If you cannot do without the international revolution
, relinquish power, this October power that we
conquered in the interest of the international revolution.” This is
the depths of depravity one can reach, in the realm of ideas,
when one starts from a radically flawed way of posing the
question !

The project develops an undeniable idea when it states
that the economic successes of the USSR are inextricably
linked to the world proletarian revolution. But the
political danger of this new theory lies in its
erroneous comparison of the two levers of control for world socialism :
our economic achievements and the world proletarian revolution
. Without the victory of the latter, we will
not build socialism. The workers of Europe and the entire world
must clearly understand this. The lever of economic construction
is of enormous importance. If the leadership is mistaken,
the dictatorship of the proletariat weakens ; the fall of this dictatorship
would deal such a blow to the world revolution that it would
not recover for many years. But the resolution of the
fundamental historical struggle between the world of
socialism and that of capitalism depends on the second lever, that is,
the world proletarian revolution. The enormous importance
of the Soviet Union comes from the fact that it constitutes the basis
on which the world revolution rests and not at all from its
capacity to build socialism independently of the
world revolution.

In a tone of superiority that nothing justifies, Bukharin
asked us several times :

"If there are already premises, these starting points,
a sufficient basis and even some successes in the work of
building socialism, where then is the limit, the edge from
which 'everything is done in the opposite direction' ? There is
none." (60)

This is flawed geometry, not
historical dialectic. Such a slant can exist. It can exist in
the domestic, international, political, economic, and
military spheres. The most important, the most threatening, would be a
serious and lasting consolidation of global capitalism, a
new surge of the latter. The economic and
political question thus leads to the global arena.
Can the bourgeoisie secure for itself a new era of capitalist growth
? To deny such a possibility, to bet on the "dead
end" of capitalism, would be nothing but revolutionary rhetoric
. "There are no situations that are completely hopeless"
(Lenin). The current state of unstable equilibrium between classes in
Europe cannot last indefinitely, precisely because it is
unstable.

When Stalin and Bukharin demonstrate that the USSR
can, as a state (that is, in its relations with the
world bourgeoisie) do without the help of the foreign proletariat,
they show the same blindness as in the other
consequences of their fundamental errors, because the current
active sympathy of the working masses protects us against
intervention.

It is entirely undeniable that, after the
Social Democrats sabotaged the post-war uprising of the
European proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the active sympathy of the
working masses saved the Soviet Republic. During those
years, the European bourgeoisie was unable to muster the
necessary strength to wage a major war against the workers' state.

To believe, however, that such a balance of power can be maintained
for years, for example until the construction of
socialism in the USSR, would be to demonstrate the greatest
blindness and to judge an entire curve based on a very
small segment. Such an unstable situation, where the proletariat cannot
seize power while the bourgeoisie does not feel
firmly in control of its own house, must, sooner or later, within a year
, decide brutally in one direction or the other : that
of the dictatorship of the proletariat or that of a
serious and lasting consolidation of the bourgeoisie on the backs of the
popular masses, on the bones of colonial peoples, and who knows...
on our own. "There are no situations that are absolutely hopeless
." The bourgeoisie can permanently escape its
most painful contradictions only by following the path opened
by the defeats of the proletariat and the errors of the revolutionary leadership
. But the reverse is also true. There
will be no further rise of global capitalism (the
prospect of a new era of great upheaval) if
the proletariat can find a revolutionary way out of the
current unstable equilibrium.

"It must now be demonstrated by the practical work
of the revolutionary parties," said Lenin
at the Second Congress on July 19, 1920, "that they have sufficient
awareness, organizational spirit, connection with the
exploited masses, resolve, and knowledge to use
this crisis to the advantage of a triumphant revolution, culminating
in success." (61)

As for our internal contradictions, which depend directly
on the course of the struggle in Europe and the world, they
can be intelligently regulated and mitigated by a
just domestic policy based on Marxist foresight ; but
they can only be overcome by eliminating class contradictions
, which is impossible before
the European revolution has occurred and triumphed. Stalin is right : there is a
divergence precisely on this point, and it is the fundamental divergence
that exists between reformist nationalism and
revolutionary internationalism.

10. The theory of socialism in one country as a source
of inevitable social-patriotic errors

The theory of socialism in one country inevitably leads
to underestimating the difficulties that must be overcome and
exaggerating the achievements made. No assertion could be
more anti-socialist and anti-revolutionary than Stalin's declaration
that 90% of socialism has been achieved in
our country. This seems specifically designed for the self-satisfied bureaucrat . In this way , the idea of socialist society in the eyes of the working masses
can be irreparably damaged . The successes of the Soviet proletariat are magnificent considering the conditions under which they were achieved and the low level of cultural heritage. But these achievements carry little weight in the balance of the socialist ideal. To avoid condemning to discouragement the worker, the agricultural laborer, the poor peasant , who, in the eleventh year of the revolution, see misery, poverty, unemployment, queues outside bakeries , illiteracy, vagrant children, drunkenness, and prostitution all around them, we must tell the truth, however cruel it may be, and not a pleasant lie. Instead of lying to them by assuring them that 90% of socialism has already been achieved, we must tell them that currently our economic level, our daily living conditions , and our culture place us much closer to capitalism, and moreover to a backward and uncultured capitalism, than to a socialist society. We must tell them that we are only moving towards the path of the true construction of socialism after the conquest of power by the proletariat of the most advanced countries ; that we must work tirelessly towards this construction , using two levers : one short, that of our economic efforts at home, and the other long, that of the international struggle of the proletariat.

In short, instead of Stalin's phrases about 90% of
socialism already being achieved, we should quote these words from Lenin :

“Russia (impoverished) will only become so (abundant
) if it rejects all discouragement and all
phraseology, if, gritting its teeth, it gathers all
its strength and tenses every nerve and every muscle, if it
understands that salvation is possible only on the path
of the international socialist revolution, which
we have entered.” (62)

We have even heard prominent members of
the Communist International put forward the following argument : obviously, the
theory of socialism in one country lacks substance,
but it offers a perspective, under difficult conditions, to
Russian workers, and thus gives them courage. It is difficult
to measure the depth of the fall, from a theoretical point of view,
of those who do not seek in a program a means of
orientation, a class-based tool with a scientific foundation, but rather
moral consolation. Consoling theories that contradict
the facts belong to religion, not science. And yet, “
religion is the opium of the people” (63).

Our party went through its heroic period with a program
entirely focused on the international revolution, not
on socialism in one country. The Communist Youth,
bearing a banner that proclaimed backward Russia
would not build socialism by its own strength alone, endured the
harshest years of the Civil War, famine, cold, grueling
Communist Saturdays and Sundays, epidemics, studying on an
empty stomach, and the countless casualties that marked every
advance. Party and
Communist Youth members fought on all fronts, hauled beams
through railway stations, not because they hoped to build
the edifice of national socialism with them, but because they were serving the
international revolution, which demands that the Soviet fortress
hold firm ; and, for the Soviet fortress, every new
beam is important. That was how we approached the
matter. The deadlines changed, shifted (though not
so much) ; But the
principled approach to the problem still retains all its force. The
proletarian, the poor peasant partisan, the young communist,
demonstrated beforehand, by all their conduct prior to 1925, the year in
which the new gospel was first preached, that they
had no need of it. But it was necessary for the bureaucrat
who looks down on the masses, for the administrator who struggles
for crumbs and doesn't want to be bothered, for the man of
the apparatus who seeks to command by hiding behind a
salutary and comforting facade. These are the ones who believe that the obscure masses need "good news," that the people
cannot be controlled without doctrines of consolation.
It is
precisely they who seize upon the false words about the
"90% of socialism", because this formula consecrates their
privileged position, their right to order, to command, their desire to
free themselves from the criticism of "men of little faith" and
"skeptics".

The complaints and accusations that questioning
the possibility of building socialism in one
country would extinguish the spirit and kill energy resemble, despite
different circumstances, the accusations that reformists
have always leveled against revolutionaries. "You tell the
workers that they cannot obtain any significant improvement in their
situation within the limits of capitalist society,"
the reformists objected, "and therefore, you kill their
energy for struggle." In reality, it was only under the leadership of
revolutionaries that workers truly fought for
economic gains and parliamentary reforms.
The worker who understands that one cannot build the
socialist paradise like an oasis in the hell of global capitalism,
and that the destiny of the Soviet republic, and consequently
his own, depends entirely on the international revolution
, will fulfill his duty to the USSR with much
more energy than the worker who has been told that what
already exists is 90% socialism. "Is it then worth
striving for socialism ?" The reformist way of approaching
the question, here as everywhere, strikes not only revolution
, but also reform.

In the 1915 article already cited above, devoted to the slogan
of the United States of Europe, we wrote :
“To examine the prospects of social revolution
within the national framework would mean falling victim to the same
narrow-minded national spirit that constitutes the basis of social-
patriotism. Until the end of his days, Vaillant (64) believed that
France was the promised land of social revolution ;
it was precisely from this point of view that he wanted
to defend it to the very end.” Lensch (65) and his associates (some
hypocritically, others sincerely) believed that
Germany's defeat would first and foremost mean the destruction of
the foundation of the social revolution... Overall, it
should not be forgotten that alongside the most vulgar reformism, there
still exists within social-patriotism a
revolutionary messianism that extols the exploits of its nation-state
because it considers its industrial situation, its
"democratic" form, or its revolutionary conquests to call upon it
to lead humanity to socialism or "democracy
." If a victorious revolution could truly be
conceived within the confines of a better-prepared nation, this
messianism, linked to the program of national defense,
would have a relative historical justification in its favor.

But in reality, he does not have one. To struggle to preserve the
national basis of the revolution by methods that undermine the
international ties of the proletariat is, in fact, to undermine the
revolution ; the latter cannot begin except on
a national basis, since it cannot be completed on
that basis, due to the economic,
political, and military interdependence of the European states, which has
never manifested itself with such force as during the
current war. Precisely this interdependence, which
will directly and immediately condition the coordination
of the actions of the European proletariat during the
revolution, is expressed by the slogan of the United States
of Europe.” (66)

Starting from his flawed interpretation of the
1915 polemic, Stalin tried more than once to present
things as if the mention of the narrow-minded "national spirit" was aimed at
Lenin. It is difficult to imagine anything more absurd. When I had to
argue with Lenin, I always did so openly,
always guided solely by considerations of ideas. The article
names those it accuses : Vaillant, Lensch, etc.
It must be remembered that 1915 was the year of the social-
patriotic orgy, while our struggle against it was raging.

This was the touchstone of all the questions. The
fundamental question contained in the above quote is
correctly posed : preparing to build socialism in one
country is a social-patriotic process.

The patriotism of German Social Democrats began
as a perfectly legitimate party patriotism—their party being the
most powerful in the Second International. German Social Democracy
wanted to build "its" socialist society on the basis
of German advanced technology and the superior
organizational qualities of the German people. Leaving aside the
hardened bureaucrats, the opportunists, the parliamentary opportunists,
and the political swindlers in general, the social patriotism of
the rank-and-file Social Democrat stemmed precisely from the hope of
building German socialism. It is simply inconceivable
that hundreds of thousands of activists forming
Social Democratic cadres (not to mention the millions of rank-and-file workers
) were seeking to defend the Hohenzollerns or the bourgeoisie.
No, they wanted to protect German industry,
German roads and railways, German technology and culture,
and above all the organizations of the German working class, as
"necessary and sufficient" national premises of
socialism.

In France, too, a similar process was unfolding.
Guesde, Vaillant, and with them thousands of
the party's best activists and cadres, along with hundreds of thousands of ordinary
workers, rightly saw France, with its traditions
of revolt, its heroic proletariat, and its flexible, gifted,
and highly educated population, as the promised land of socialism. It was
neither the bankers nor the rentiers that the old Guesde,
Vaillant the Communard, and with them thousands upon hundreds
of thousands of honest workers defended. They sincerely believed they were defending
the foundation and the creative force of the future socialist society. They
initially adopted the theory of socialism in
one country entirely ; they believed they were "temporarily" sacrificing
international solidarity to this idea.

This comparison with the social-patriots naturally calls for
the following response : in relation to the Soviet state,
patriotism is a revolutionary duty, while in relation to the
bourgeois state it constitutes treason. This is quite true.
Can adult revolutionaries even discuss such a question
? But the further one goes, the more an indisputable thesis serves
as a scholastic smokescreen for a viewpoint known to be a
deliberate fabrication.

Revolutionary patriotism can only have a
class character. It begins as party and trade union patriotism
and rises to become state patriotism when the
proletariat seizes power. Wherever power is in the hands
of the workers, patriotism is a revolutionary duty. But
this patriotism must be an integral part of revolutionary internationalism
. Marxism has always taught workers
that even the struggle for wages and the limitation of the
working day can only prevail if it is waged as an
international struggle. And now, suddenly, it turns out
that the ideal of socialist society can be achieved by the
forces of a single nation alone. This is a fatal blow to the International
. The unshakeable conviction that the fundamental class goal
cannot be achieved, much less its partial objectives,
by national means or within the framework of a nation, lies at the
heart of revolutionary internationalism. If the ultimate goal can be achieved
within national borders through the efforts
of a nation's proletariat, then the backbone of internationalism
is broken. The theory of the possibility of realizing
socialism in a single country severs the internal link between the
patriotism of the victorious proletariat and the defeatism of the proletariat
in bourgeois countries. As things stand, the proletariat of the
advanced capitalist countries is still only advancing toward power.
How it will march toward it, what paths it will follow in
its march, will depend entirely on its
answer to the question of whether it considers the
task of building socialist society a
national or an international problem.

If it is possible, from a principled standpoint, to achieve
socialism in a single country, this theory can be admitted not
only after the conquest of power, but also before. If
socialism is achievable within the national framework of the backward USSR,
it is all the more so in advanced Germany. Tomorrow,
the leaders of the German Communist Party will develop this
theory. The draft program gives them the right to do so. The day after
tomorrow, it will be the turn of the French Communist Party. This will be the
beginning of the disintegration of the Communist International along
the lines of social-patriotism. The Communist Party of any
capitalist country, convinced that it possesses within its state all
the "necessary and sufficient" foundations to build, by
its own forces, "a fully socialist society," will,
in essence, be no different from revolutionary social democracy
, which, likewise, did not begin with Noske (69), but
which definitively collapsed on this issue on August 4, 1914.

When it is said that the very existence of the USSR
is a guarantee against social-patriotism, because patriotism
towards the workers' republic is a revolutionary duty, one is
precisely expressing a narrow-minded national spirit through this
one-sided use of a valid idea : one only has the USSR in mind and
one turns a blind eye to the entire world proletariat.
The latter can only be guided towards defeatism towards the bourgeois state
by addressing the essential problem from an
international perspective in the program, by ruthlessly refuting the
social-patriotic contraband which, for the moment, still disguises itself
by infiltrating the theoretical domain of
the Leninist International's program.

It is not too late to return to the path of
Marx and Lenin. This necessary return will open the only path
that can lead forward. It is to facilitate this
salutary correction that we present this critique of the draft program to the Sixth Congress of the
Communist International.

II. THE STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE IMPERIALIST ERA

1. The complete inconsistency of the main chapter of the project

The draft program includes a chapter devoted to the
problems of revolutionary strategy. One cannot do
less than acknowledge a good intention, consistent with the
aims and spirit of an international program of the proletariat in
the imperialist era.

The idea of a revolutionary strategy only took hold
in the postwar period, initially certainly under the influence of
military terminology. But its emergence was not accidental
. Before the war, we spoke only of the tactics of the
proletarian party : this concept corresponded exactly
to the parliamentary and trade union methods then prevalent
and did not extend beyond the framework of
current demands and tasks. Tactics are merely a system of measures concerning
a particular problem that arises, or
a separate domain of the class struggle. Revolutionary strategy
encompasses a whole system of actions which, in their connection and
sequence, in their development, must lead the
proletariat to the conquest of power.

It goes without saying that the fundamental principles of
revolutionary strategy were formulated when Marxism posed
to the revolutionary parties of the proletariat the problem of
seizing power on the basis of class struggle. But in
essence, the First International (70) only succeeded in theoretically formulating
these principles and partially verifying them through
the experience of various countries. The era of the Second International (71)
gave rise to methods and concepts such as, later,
the one for which, following Bernstein's famous expression (72),
"the movement is everything and the objective is nothing." In other
words, the strategic task was reduced to nothing, dissolved in the
daily "movement" with its tactical slogans.
It was only the Second International (73) that restored the rights of
revolutionary strategy by completely subordinating
the methods of tactics to it. Thanks to the invaluable experience
of the first two Internationals, upon whose shoulders
the Third stands, thanks to the revolutionary character of the
present era and the immense historical experience of the
October Revolution, the strategy of the Third International immediately
manifested a vibrant combativeness and
enormous historical experience. But the first decade of the
new International unfolds before our eyes a panorama where there
are not only gigantic battles, but also
cruel proletarian defeats since 1918. This is why the
problems of strategy and tactics must obviously
be at the center of the program of the Communist International
. Yet, in fact, the chapter of the project devoted to the strategy and
tactics of the Communist International—which bears the
subtitle "The Road to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat"—is the
weakest chapter, almost inconsistent ; As for the part concerning
the East, it consists of a generalization of the errors
already committed and the preparation of new ones.

The introductory section of this chapter focuses on the
critique of anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism,
constructive socialism, guild socialism (74), etc. This is merely a literary imitation of the 1847 Communist
Manifesto , which ushered in an era of proletarian politics based on science through a brilliant and rigorous critique of the various forms of utopian socialism. To engage, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Communist International, in a hasty and cursory critique of the theories of Cornelissen, Arturo Labriola, Bernard Shaw (75), or of little-known "guildists," is not to respond to a political need, but rather to fall victim to a purely literary pedantry. This dead weight can be boldly discarded from the program and relegated to the realm of propaganda literature.

Regarding the strategic issues themselves, the project
then simply proposes models suitable for
primary schools :

"To gain influence over the majority of members
of one's own class... To gain influence over the broad
working classes in general... The daily work
to win over the trade unions is particularly important
... Winning over large sectors of poor peasants is
also of enormous importance"...

All these elementary truths, indisputable in themselves
, are simply listed one after the other,
that is to say without being linked to the character of the historical period ;
in the academic and abstract form which they currently take,
they could easily take their place in a resolution
of the Second International.

The fundamental problem of the program, the strategy of the
revolutionary coup d'état (conditions and methods for approaching
the insurrection itself, the conquest of power) is
examined in an arid and dry manner in a schematic extract,
shorter than the one devoted to "constructive"
and "guild" socialism : this examination is done in an abstract and
pedantic way without reference to the living experience of our time.

There is no mention of the great battles of the proletariat in
Finland, Germany, and Austria, nor of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic, the September Days (1920) in Italy,
the events of 1923 in Germany, or the general strike (of
1926) in England, except in a
dry chronological enumeration, not in Chapter VI, which deals with the strategy of the
proletariat, but in Chapter II, which sets forth "the crisis of
capitalism and the first phase of the world revolution." In
other words, the great proletarian struggles are considered
only as objective events, expressions of the
"general crisis of capitalism," and not as the
strategic experience of the proletariat. It will suffice to point out that the condemnation
of the revolutionary spirit of adventure (“putschism”), which
is in itself a duty, is formulated in the draft without
even attempting to answer the question of whether, for example,
the uprising in Estonia, the attack on Sofia Cathedral
in 1924, or the last Canton 76 uprising were
heroic manifestations of the revolutionary spirit of adventure
or, on the contrary, methodical actions falling within the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat. A draft that fails to address this urgent question
on the problem of “putschism” is merely a diplomatic evasion by the chancellery, not a document of communist strategy.

It is evident that, in the project under consideration, the abstract way
in which the problems of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle
are posed, placing oneself above history, is not accidental.
This literary, pedantic, reasoning, Bukharan-
esque approach to posing problems without adopting the perspective of
revolutionary action has yet another cause : for
reasons that are all too understandable, the authors of the
project generally prefer not to delve too deeply
into the strategic lessons of the past five years.

However, a revolutionary action program cannot be conceived
as a mere collection of abstract theses,
independent of what transpired during those historical years
. A program obviously cannot recount everything
that happened, but it must take it as its starting point and
foundation, encompassing all events and referring to them. The program must
allow us to grasp, through its theses, all the
major events of the proletariat's struggle and all the
important facts of the struggle of ideas within the Communist International
. If this is true for the program as a whole, it is even
more so for the section devoted to questions of strategy and
tactics. Here, in Lenin's words, we must record what
has been won as well as what has been lost, which
can become a "conquest" if we fully understand and assimilate it
. The proletarian vanguard does not need a
catalogue of commonplaces, but a manual of action. That is
why we will examine the problems of the chapter "strategy
" by linking them closely to the experience of the post-
war struggle, especially of the last five years, during which the
leadership has made tragic mistakes.

2. Essential characteristics of the strategy during the
revolutionary period and the role of the party

The imperialist era is the era of proletarian revolutions
, but the chapter of the program on strategy and
tactics does not, in a somewhat coherent way, make any
comparison from the point of view of strategy between the
present period and that of the pre-war period.

It is true that, in the first chapter, he characterizes the
period of industrial capitalism as a whole as
"a period of relatively continuous evolution of the spread
of capitalism across the globe thanks to the partitioning
of the still unoccupied colonies which took place by force of arms
".

It is also true that this way of appreciating it is quite
contradictory ; nevertheless, it undeniably embellishes the era
of industrial capitalism, which was one of
grandiose upheavals, wars, and revolutions, surpassing in violence
all of humanity's past. But shouldn't it have been characterized
as absolutely idyllic, at least to somewhat justify
the recent, ludicrous assertion by the authors of the project that
, "in the time of Marx and Engels,"
the law of unequal development couldn't even have been discussed ? However, while it
is wrong to characterize the entire history of
industrial capitalism as a "continuous evolution," it is right to
emphasize this fact : while the period experienced by Europe between
1871 and 1914, or at least 1905, saw
contradictions accumulate, relations between classes remained within the
framework of legality, and those between states within that of
armed peace. It was at this time that the Second International emerged and then became petrified,
its historical progressive role ending
at the beginning of the imperialist war.

Politics as a historical mass force
always lags behind economics. If the reign of finance capital and
trust monopolies already began at the end of the 19th century, the new
era that reflects this fact in world political life
begins with the imperialist war, with the October Revolution
and the founding of the Third International.

At the root of the explosive nature of this new era, the
abrupt alternation of political ebbs and flows, and the
continuous spasms of the class struggle between fascism and communism
, lies the fact that, from a historical perspective, the
global capitalist system is exhausted, no longer capable of
progressing as a whole. This does not mean that certain
industrial sectors or countries are not growing and will not continue to grow
. But this development is occurring and will continue to occur at the
expense of the growth of other sectors and other countries. The
production costs of the global capitalist system are
increasingly devouring the global income it generates. But Europe,
accustomed to dominating the world because of the speed acquired by
its rapid pre-war growth and which continued
uninterrupted at the time, has encountered more brutally than any
other part of the world the new balance of power, the
new distribution of the world market, and aggravated contradictions
: thus it is precisely Europe that is undergoing the most brutal
transition from the "organic" era of pre-
war development to that of revolutions.

Theoretically, one cannot say that
a new chapter of general capitalist progress is impossible in
the most advanced capitalist countries, those that dominate and
drive development. But for this to happen, capitalism would first have
to leap over high barriers in the realm of class
and relations between states : it would have to crush
the proletarian revolution for a long time, definitively enslave China
, overthrow the Soviet Republic, and so on. We are
very far from that. A theoretical possibility is far from being a
political probability. It goes without saying that some things depend on us,
that is to say, on the revolutionary strategy of the
Communist International. And, ultimately, this question will be
decided on a global scale. But, in the present era, for
which this program is specifically designed, the
general development of capitalism is encountering insurmountable barriers
made up of contradictions that are shaking it in furious turmoil.

This is precisely what gives this era a
revolutionary character and the revolution a permanent character.

The revolutionary character of the era does not consist in
the fact that it allows for revolution (that is, for seizing
power) at every moment. It consists of abrupt and wide oscillations
: one moves from a directly
revolutionary situation, where the communist party can claim
to seize power, to the victory of a
fascist or semi-fascist counter-revolution, from the latter to a provisional regime
of the middle ground ("left-wing bloc", entry of social
democracy into the ruling coalition in Germany, arrival in power of MacDonald's party (77) etc.) only for the contradictions to become razor-sharp
again and for the question of power to arise once more.

What did you see in Europe in the last decades
before the war ? Economically, a powerful surge
in productive forces through the "normal" fluctuations of
the economic cycle. Politically : the growth of social
democracy, with some minor setbacks, at the expense of
liberalism and "democracy." In other words : a
methodical process in which
economic and political contradictions intensified ; in this sense, we were witnessing the
emergence of the beginnings of the proletarian revolution.

What are we facing in post-war Europe ?

In economic matters, irregular and convulsive contractions and relaxations
of production have generally gravitated, despite
significant technological progress in certain sectors,
around pre-war levels. In the political sphere, there have been
furious oscillations of the political situation to the left and
right. It is quite clear that the abrupt shifts of
the last two or three years are not determined by
changes in fundamental economic factors, but by
causes and forces that originate strictly from the realm
of the superstructure, symbolizing the extreme instability of the entire
system, whose foundations are being eroded by insurmountable
contradictions.

It is only from this characteristic that the full meaning of revolutionary strategy, as opposed
to tactics, is deduced . It is from this that the
new meaning of the party and its leadership also derives.

The project merely provides a formal definition of the party
(vanguard, Marxist theory, embodiment of experience,
etc.) that would produce no dissonance in the program of
pre-war left-wing social democracy. Currently, this is
entirely insufficient.

Faced with expanding capitalism, even the best
leadership of the party could only accelerate the formation of the
workers' party. Conversely, its errors could only delay this
formation. The objective premises of the revolution matured
slowly, and the party's work retained its preparatory character
.

Now, any sudden shift in the
political situation to the left places the decision in the hands of the
revolutionary party. If it misses the critical moment when the
situation changes, it will turn into its opposite. Under
such conditions, the role of the leadership takes on exceptional
importance. Lenin's assertion that two or three days
can decide the fate of the international revolution would
not have been understood in the era of the Second International. In our
time, on the contrary, it has been all too often confirmed negatively
, with the exception of October. It is the sum of these conditions
that explains the quite exceptional place that the Comintern and its
leadership occupy in the general mechanism of the
current historical era.

It must be understood that the primary and fundamental cause
of the so-called "stabilization" is the contradiction between
the general upheaval that has affected the entire economic and social atmosphere
of capitalist Europe and the colonial Orient on the one hand,
and the weakness, unpreparedness, irresolution of the communist parties
and the cruel errors of their leadership on the other.

It was not some stabilization that came from who knows where that
halted the development of the revolutionary situation of
1918, 1919, or the years that followed, but rather this very situation,
which had not been exploited and which was transforming into its
opposite, giving the bourgeoisie the opportunity to struggle with
relative success for stabilization. The increasingly
acute contradictions of this struggle for "stabilization," or, to
put it better, this struggle for the survival and perpetuation of capitalism
, prepare at each new stage the conditions for
new explosions of classes and international relations—
that is to say, for new revolutionary situations whose
development depends entirely on the proletarian party.

The role of the subjective factor can remain entirely secondary
in an era of slow, organic evolution, where
the proverbs of gradualism emerge : "Slow and
steady wins the race," "No one is obligated to do the impossible," etc., which summarize
the wisdom of the tactics of the organic era, which cannot
"skip steps." When the objective premises
are ripe, then the key to the entire historical process shifts to the
subjective factor, namely the party. Opportunism, which lives,
consciously or unconsciously, under the weight of the past, is always inclined
to underestimate the subjective factor, that is, the importance of the
party and its revolutionary leadership. This phenomenon
manifested itself in all its magnitude during the discussions on
the German October, the Anglo-Russian Committee, and the
Chinese Revolution. In these circumstances, as in others less
significant, the opportunistic tendency emerged along
lines that relied directly on the "masses" and
consequently neglected the problems of the "apex" of the
revolutionary leadership. This approach,
theoretically flawed, appears particularly disastrous in
the imperialist era.

The October Revolution was the result of a special balance
of class forces in Russia and the world, and of
their particular development during the
imperialist war. This is ABC for a Marxist. One does not,
however, contradict Marxism by asking, for example, the question :

“Would we have seized power in October if Lenin hadn't been able to
arrive in Russia in time ?” Many signs indicate that we
might have failed. The resistance was enormous, even after Lenin's
arrival, in the upper echelons of the party (which, incidentally
, were largely the same as those that
determine current policy). It would have been infinitely stronger
if Lenin hadn't been there. The party might not have been able
to get on the necessary course in time. And time was
short. In such periods, a few days are sometimes
decisive. The working masses would have exerted their pressure from
below, with great heroism, but without a leadership
consciously and firmly marching toward the goal. It is unlikely
that we would have prevailed. Meanwhile, having ceded Petrograd
to the Germans and crushed the scattered proletarian uprisings
, the bourgeoisie could have consolidated its power,
probably in a Bonapartist form, by concluding
a separate peace with Germany and taking other measures.

The entire course of events could have taken a completely
different turn for years.

In the German Revolution of 1918, the
Hungarian Revolution of 1919, the Italian proletarian movement of
September 1920, the English General Strike of 1926, the
Vienna Uprising of 1927, and the Chinese Revolution
of 1926-27 (78), to varying degrees and in diverse forms,
the same political contradiction is always expressed
in the face of a revolutionary situation that has reached maturity not
only through its social foundations but often also through the
militancy of the masses. The subjective factor is lacking, namely
a mass revolutionary party, or else this party lacks a
perceptive and courageous leadership.

It goes without saying that the weakness of the communist parties and their
leadership did not appear out of thin air, but is a product of
Europe's entire past. Given the current maturity of
objective revolutionary contradictions, revolutionary parties
could develop at a rapid pace if the
Comintern leadership acted judiciously, accelerating the
maturation process instead of hindering it. If contradiction
is generally the principal source of progress, then
a clear understanding of the contradiction between the
general revolutionary maturity of the objective situation (despite its
ebbs and flows) and the immaturity of the international party of the proletariat
must be the driving force behind the Comintern's advance, at least in
its European sections.

If we fail to grasp, dialectically, broadly, and
generally, that the present era is one of abrupt turning points
, it is impossible to truly educate young activists,
to ensure sound strategic direction of the class struggle, to
correctly combine tactics, and above all, to rearm
quickly, courageously, and decisively at every turning point
in the situation. And it is precisely such a turning point of two or
three days that sometimes decides the fate of the international revolution
for years to come.

The chapter of the draft program devoted to strategy
and tactics discusses the party's struggle for the proletariat in
general, the general strike, and armed insurrection in
general. But it does not analyze the particular character and internal rhythm
of the present era. If these are not understood theoretically , if they are not "sensed" politically, revolutionary leadership
is impossible .

That is why this chapter is so pedantic, so thin,
so inconsistent, from beginning to end.

3. The Third Congress and the question of the permanence of the
revolutionary process according to Lenin and Bukharin

In the political development of Europe after the
war, three periods can be distinguished : the first from 1917 to
1921, the second from March 1921 to October 1923 and the third
from October 1923 to the English general strike, or even up to
the present day.

The postwar revolutionary mass movement
was quite sufficient to overthrow the bourgeoisie. But there
was no one to do it. Social democracy, which was at the
head of the old working-class organizations, mustered
all its forces to save the bourgeois regime. Since we expected the proletariat to seize power
during this period, we anticipated that the revolutionary party would mature rapidly in the heat of the civil war. But the timing didn't work out. The postwar wave receded before the communist parties fighting against social democracy had grown and become sufficiently strong to lead the insurrection .

In March 1921, the German Communist Party attempted
to use the ebbing tide of the war to bring down
the bourgeois state in one fell swoop. The idea behind the German Central Committee
was to save the Soviet republic (the theory of socialism
in one country had not yet been proclaimed) (79).
However, it turned out that the leadership's resolve and the
masses' discontent were not enough to achieve victory :
many other conditions were needed, and above all, a close link between the leadership
and the masses, as well as the latter's confidence in their
leadership. This last condition was lacking.

The Third Congress of the Communist International marks the turning point between
the first and second periods ; it recognized that the
political and organizational resources of the communist parties
were insufficient to seize power, and it launched the slogan
"To the Masses," meaning to seize
power by first winning over the masses in their struggles and
daily lives. For, even in the conditions of a
revolutionary era, the masses live their everyday lives,
albeit differently.

This approach to the problem met with
fierce resistance at the congress, the theoretical inspiration of which
was Bukharin. He positioned himself from the perspective of his own
permanent revolution, not Marx's : since
capitalism is finished, the revolutionary offensive for victory must be waged relentlessly
. Bukharin's position
always boils down to syllogisms of this kind.
It goes without saying that I have never shared Bukharin's theory
of "permanent revolution," which cannot conceive of any discontinuity, periods of stagnation, setbacks, or transient demands
within the revolutionary process . On the contrary, from the very first days of October, I fought against this caricature of permanent revolution.

When I spoke, like Lenin, of the incompatibility between
Soviet Russia and the imperialist world, I had in mind the
grand arc of strategy, not its tactical intricacies.
Bukharin, on the other hand, before transforming into his opposite,
invariably developed his scholastic caricature of the
Marxist conception of revolution. Throughout
the era of "left communism," Bukharin
believed that revolution allowed neither retreats nor
provisional compromises with the enemy. Long after Brest-Litovsk,
where my attitude had nothing in common with Bukharin's
(80), the latter, along with the entire ultra-left wing of the
then Communist International, adopted the line of the March
1921 events in Germany, believing that if the European proletariat were not "electrified,"
if new revolutionary explosions did not occur again and again
, the power of the soviets
would inevitably collapse. Although I was aware of the
undeniable dangers threatening this power, this did
not prevent me from fighting, hand in hand with Lenin, at the
Third Congress, against this putschist parody of the Marxist conception
of permanent revolution (81). We repeated dozens
of times during this congress, addressing the
impatient leftists (82) : “Do not rush to save us ;
you would only lose yourselves and consequently us as well.
Follow the path of systematic struggle for the conquest of the
masses with a view to seizing power. It is your victory
that we need, not your willingness to fight
for us under unfavorable conditions. We in
Soviet Russia will maintain our positions on the basis
of the NEP and advance a little. You will still have
time to come to our aid at the opportune moment by preparing
your forces and taking advantage of a favorable situation.”

Although it was after the 10th Congress, which had prohibited the
formation of factions, Lenin took the initiative to create the nucleus
of a faction to combat ultra-leftism. In our
small meetings, he clearly raised the question of the paths to
follow should the Third Congress adopt
Bukharin's position. Our "faction" at the time did not need
to expand because our adversaries, from the Congress onward,
significantly narrowed their ranks.

Naturally, Bukharin strayed further to the left of Marxism
than the others. At that same Third Congress and afterward, he
opposed an idea I was developing : the inevitability
of an economic recovery in Europe. I,
for my part, expected that after a series of defeats for the
proletariat, this recovery, far from undermining the
revolution, would instead trigger a new surge in the
revolutionary struggle. Bukharin, clinging to his
scholastic notion of the permanence not only of the economic crisis
but of the revolution as a whole, fought me
at length based on this idea, until events
forced him to admit, as always with considerable
delay, that he had been mistaken.

At the 3rd and 4th Congresses, Bukharin fought against the policy
of the united front and transitional demands based on his
mechanical conception of the permanence of the revolutionary process
.

One could trace the struggle between these two tendencies—the
synthetic Marxist conception of the continuous nature of the
proletarian revolution, and the parody of
Marxism, which is by no means a personal peculiarity of
Bukharin—in a whole series of other matters, both minor
and major. But it is pointless : fundamentally,
Bukharin's current stance is his same ultra-
leftist scholasticism of "permanent revolution," but in reverse. For
example, whereas, until 1923, Bukharin believed that,
without a permanent economic crisis and civil war in Europe, the
Soviet Republic would perish, he has now discovered a
recipe that makes it possible to
build socialism without an international revolution. This inverted Bukharinian continuity
has not improved, especially since, all too often, the
current leaders of the Comintern combine the opportunism of their
present stance with the adventurist spirit that inspired them yesterday, and
vice versa.

The Third Congress was a milestone of great importance.
Its teachings remain alive and fruitful today. The
Fourth Congress merely put them into practice. The slogan of the
Third Congress was not simply "To the masses !" but
"To power through the prior conquest of the masses !"
After the faction led by Lenin—whom he significantly called
"the right wing"—had vigorously urged the Congress to exercise
more restraint, Lenin finally convened a small conference
during which he issued this prophetic warning :
"Remember that what matters is simply gaining the right momentum
to make the revolutionary leap ; the struggle for the masses is
the struggle for power."

The events of 1923 showed that not only the
"led", but many leaders had not accepted this
conception of Lenin.

4. The events of 1923 in Germany and the Lessons of October

The new period in the development of the
Communist International opened with the events of 1923 in Germany.
The occupation of the Ruhr by French troops (at the beginning of
1923) meant a relapse of Europe into the chaos of war.

Although this second attack of the disease was incomparably
milder than the first, because it struck
Germany's already profoundly weakened state,
serious revolutionary consequences were to be expected from the outset. The leadership
of the Comintern failed to take this into account in time. The
German Communist Party continued to follow the directives of the Third Congress, which
had firmly distanced it from the idea of a putsch, but which it had
adopted unilaterally. We have already stated that in our
era of abrupt changes, the most difficult task for a
revolutionary leadership is to know, at the opportune moment, how to
gauge the political situation, perceive its
sudden shifts, and provide timely and decisive guidance. Such
qualities of revolutionary leadership are not acquired simply
by swearing an oath to the latest Comintern circular ; their
acquisition requires, in addition to indispensable theoretical foundations,
personal experience and the practice of genuine self-criticism.

The abrupt shift from the tactics of the March 1921 uprisings to systematic revolutionary activity
in the press, meetings, trade unions, and Parliament was not without difficulty
. Once the crisis stemming from this shift was overcome,
the danger of a new,
unilateral deviation of the opposite nature became apparent. The daily struggle to
win over the masses absorbs all attention : it establishes its
own tactical routine and obscures the
strategic problems arising from changes in the
objective situation.

In the summer of 1923, the domestic situation in Germany turned catastrophic,
primarily due to the failure of the
passive resistance tactic. It became abundantly clear that the
German bourgeoisie would only be able to extricate itself from this "dead
end" if the Communist Party did not fully grasp
this fact and draw the
necessary revolutionary conclusions. But the Communist Party, holding
the key, used it to open the doors to the
bourgeoisie.

Why did the German revolution fail to
achieve victory ? The causes of this failure lie entirely in the
tactics employed and not in chance. Here we have
a classic example of a failed revolutionary situation. The
German proletariat would have gone into battle if it had been
convinced that, this time, the problem of the revolution was
clearly posed, that the Communist Party was ready to go into
battle, that it was capable of ensuring triumph. But the
Communist Party made its shift without conviction and with
considerable delay. Not only the right wing but also
the left wing (83), despite the fierce struggle in which they were
engaged, continued to view the development of the revolution
with great fatalism until September-October.

But it would be the attitude of a pedant, not a revolutionary
, to analyze now, in retrospect, the question of to
what extent the conquest of power would have been "guaranteed" with
a just policy. Let us simply cite in this regard the
magnificent testimony of Pravda—a testimony,
however, due entirely to chance, since it remained isolated and was
contradicted by all the other assessments made by that
newspaper :

“If, in May 1924, faced with a certain stabilization of the
mark, a certain consolidation of the bourgeoisie, the
shift of the middle and petty bourgeoisie
to the nationalists, after a profound crisis in the party, after
a cruel defeat of the proletariat, if, after all this, the
communists managed to garner 3,700,000 votes, it is clear
that in October 1923, faced with an unprecedented
economic crisis, the complete disintegration of the
middle classes, the greatest confusion reigning in the
ranks of social democracy against a backdrop of
powerful and brutal contradictions within the bourgeoisie itself, and
an unprecedented fighting spirit among the proletarian masses
in the industrial centers, the communist party had
the majority of the population on its side : it could and should have
fought, it had every chance of succeeding.” (84)

Let us also quote the words of a German delegate, whose
name is unknown to us, speaking at the Fifth Congress :

"There is not a single conscious worker in Germany
who does not know that the party should have entered the
battle then instead of avoiding it. The leaders of the
German Communist Party forgot that the role of the party is to have its
own value : this is one of the main causes of the
defeat in October." (85)

During the discussions, many things were said about what
happened during 1923, and especially in the
second half of the year, in the upper echelons of the
German Communist Party and the Comintern. What was said, however, is
often far from what actually happened.

It was primarily Kuusinen who created the confusion on these
issues ; in 1924-1926, his task was to demonstrate that
Zinoviev's leadership had been beneficial, and then, from a
certain point in 1926, he began to try to demonstrate that it
had been disastrous. The authority necessary for the responsible formulation
of such judgments is conferred on Kuusinen by the fact that he
himself, in 1918, did everything within his modest
means to bring about the downfall of the
Finnish proletariat's revolution (86).

More than once, attempts were made to retrospectively attribute to me
solidarity with Brandler's line (87). In the USSR, this was done
in veiled terms, because too many people knew what had happened
. In Germany, they went straight for it, because
nobody knew anything. It was entirely by chance that I came
across a fragmentary account of the
intense intellectual struggle that took place within our Central Committee on the question
of the problems of the German revolution. In the documents
concerning the January 1924 conference, I am explicitly
accused by the Politburo of having displayed an attitude of
mistrust and hostility toward the Central Committee of the
German Communist Party in the period preceding its capitulation. Here is what
it says :

“Before leaving the Central Committee meeting (September 1923 plenum), Comrade Trotsky delivered a speech
that deeply disturbed all the members of the Central Committee,
in which he claimed that the leadership of the KPD
was worthless, that the Central Committee of that party was steeped in
fatalism and weakness. Comrade Trotsky thus declared
that the German revolution was doomed to defeat. This
speech deeply depressed all those present. But
the vast majority of comrades felt that this philippic
was linked to an unrelated incident (?!)
that had occurred during the Central Committee plenum
and that this speech did not correspond to the
objective situation.” (88)

However the members of the Central Committee interpreted
my warning, which was not the first, it was
dictated solely by my concerns about the fate of the
German revolution. Unfortunately, subsequent events proved me
entirely right : among other things, because the majority of the Central Committee
of our leading party had, by their own admission, failed to grasp
in time that my warning perfectly "corresponded" to
the "objective situation." I certainly did not propose a hasty replacement
of the Brandlerian Central Committee with any other (such a
substitution on the eve of decisive events would have been
a truly reckless initiative) ; I had proposed, as early as the summer
of 1923, a more opportune and decisive way of addressing the
question of transitioning to insurrection and, consequently, of
mobilizing our forces to assist the Central Committee of the
German party. The attempt to attribute to me solidarity with the
Brandlerian Central Committee line, whose errors were only a reflection of the
general errors of the Comintern leadership, is due above all to the fact
that, after the capitulation of the German party, I opposed making
Brandler a scapegoat although - or
rather because - I judged the German defeat to be infinitely more
serious than the majority of the Central Committee did. In this case, as in
others, I stood against an unacceptable system which, as
a price for the infallibility of the central leadership,
periodically dethrones the national leaderships, which are then savagely
persecuted and even expelled from the party.

In the October Lessons, written under the influence of the
German Central Committee's capitulation, I developed the idea that, under
current conditions, a revolutionary situation can
be lost for years in a matter of days. It is hard to
believe, but this opinion has been labeled "Blanquist" and
"individualist." The countless articles written against
the October Lessons have demonstrated how much the experience of
the October uprising had been forgotten and how
little its lessons had penetrated people's consciousness. To shift
the responsibility for the leadership's errors onto the "masses," or
to diminish the significance of the leadership in general in order to minimize
its culpability, is a typically
Menshevik attitude stemming from an inability to dialectically understand
the superstructure in general, the superstructure of the
class that is the party, and the superstructure of the party in the form of
its central leadership. There are times when even Marx and Engels
cannot advance
historical development by a single inch ; there are others when men of lesser stature,
holding the helm, can delay the development of the
international revolution for several years.

Recent attempts to explain that I repudiated
the October Lessons are utterly absurd. Of course, I did
"acknowledge" a minor error : when I wrote my
October Lessons, that is, in the summer of 1924, it seemed to me that Stalin
had held a more left-wing—that is,
left-centrist—position than Zinoviev had in the autumn of 1923. I was not very well
informed about the inner workings of the group that served as the
secret center of the apparatus of the majority faction. The documents
published after the split of this factional group, in
particular Stalin's purely Brandlerian letter to Zinoviev
and Bukharin (89), convinced me of my error in assessing
these groups of people, though this had nothing to do
with the substance of the issues at hand. Besides, this error concerning the
individuals was not so serious. It is true that centrism is quite
capable of zigzagging to the left, but, as
Zinoviev's "evolution" has once again demonstrated, it is quite
incapable of leading a revolutionary line that is even remotely
systematic.

The ideas I developed in Lessons of October
retain their full force today. Better still, they have been
confirmed time and again since 1924.

Among the many difficulties of the proletarian revolution
, one is quite precise, concrete, and specific :
it arises from the situation and tasks of the
revolutionary leadership of the party during a sudden turning point in events
. Even revolutionary parties run the risk of being
overtaken and of opposing yesterday's slogans and methods of struggle to the
new tasks and demands. And generally speaking, there is no
more acute turning point in events than that which creates the necessity
of an armed insurrection of the proletariat. And it is here that the
danger arises that the party leadership, the party's policy as a
whole, will not correspond to the mood of the class and
the demands of the situation. When political life develops
at a relatively slow pace, such discrepancies
eventually resolve themselves : they cause damage, not
catastrophes. But in times of
acute revolutionary crisis, it is precisely time that is lacking to overcome the
imbalance and somehow rectify the situation under fire.
Periods during which the revolutionary crisis reaches its
maximum intensity are, by their very nature, rapid in pace.

The discordance between a revolutionary direction (hesitation,
oscillation, temporizing in the face of the furious assaults of the bourgeoisie
) and the objective tasks, can lead in a few
weeks and even in a few days to a catastrophe and the
loss of what it took years of work to prepare.

It is obvious that the discord between the leadership and the party,
or even between the party and the class, can also be reversed, namely
when the leadership anticipates the development of the revolution by
confusing the fifth month of pregnancy with the ninth.

It was in Germany in March 1921 that the most striking example was seen . There, within the party, we had an
extreme manifestation of the "infantile disorder of leftism" and its consequence
— putschism (revolutionary adventurism) (90). This
danger is a reality, for the future as well. This is why
the teachings of the Third Congress retain all their force.

But the German experience of 1923 cruelly demonstrated
the opposite danger in all its magnitude : the situation is ripe, the
leadership is lagging behind. By the time the leadership manages to
adapt to the situation, the latter has already changed : the masses
are retreating and the balance of power has suddenly become
unfavorable.

In the German defeat of 1923, there were obviously
many national particularities, but also profoundly characteristic features
of a general danger.
This latter danger could be described as the crisis of revolutionary leadership on the
eve of the uprising. The base of the proletarian party, by
its very nature, is hardly inclined to submit to the pressure of
bourgeois public opinion. But, as is well known, certain
elements of the upper and middle strata of the party
inevitably fall, to a greater or lesser degree, under the influence of the material
and intellectual terror exerted by the bourgeoisie at the
decisive moment. It is impossible to ignore this danger. Undoubtedly,
there is no
universally applicable and effective remedy against it. But the first step in the struggle against a danger is
to understand its source and nature. The inevitable emergence
and development of a right-wing faction within every
communist party during the pre-October period
reflects, on the one hand, the immense objective difficulties and
dangers of the "leap" and, on the other hand, the furious pressure of
bourgeois public opinion. This is the foundation and
significance of a right-wing faction. This is precisely why hesitations and reticence
arise within communist parties at the most dangerous moment . In our country, in 1917, hesitation seized a minority in the upper classes, and it was overcome only thanks to Lenin's severe energy. In Germany, the leadership as a whole hesitated : its hesitation spread to the party and, through it, to the class : a revolutionary opportunity was missed. In China, the workers and poor peasants were fighting for power : the central leadership opposed them. These are obviously not the last leadership crises at decisive historical moments.

Minimizing these inevitable crises is one of
the most important tasks of every communist party and of the
Communist International as a whole. This can only be achieved
by understanding the experience of October 1917 and the
political foundation of the Right Opposition that existed then within our
party,⁹ by comparing them with the experience of the German party in
1923.

This is precisely the meaning of the October Lessons.

5. The Radical Strategic Error of the Fifth Congress

From the end of 1923 onward, we have a series of
documents from the Comintern and a series of statements from its leaders
concerning the "error of timing" they supposedly made in the
autumn of 1923, inevitably referring to Marx
, who was also said to have erred in setting deadlines. At the same time,
deliberately, it was not specified whether
the Communist International's "error of timing" consisted of having underestimated or,
conversely, overestimated the proximity of the critical moment for seizing
power. In accordance with the double-entry bookkeeping system
that has become, in recent years, a
tradition of leadership, room was left for either of
these two interpretations.

It is not difficult, however, to conclude from the entire policy
of the Comintern during this period that in 1924 and a good part of 1925,
the Comintern leadership believed that
the peak of the German crisis had not yet been reached. It was therefore inappropriate
to refer to Marx. While Marx may have sometimes perceived the
revolution as closer than it actually was, one
would find no instance where he did not recognize the face of
revolution as it approached, or where he persisted in
claiming that the situation remained revolutionary when it
had clearly changed.

At the 11th conference of the Russian Communist Party,
Zinoviev asserted, while launching the double-edged phrase
"error regarding deadlines" :

"The Central Committee and the Communist International
must tell you that, if similar events were to
be repeated in the same situation, we would have to do
the same thing" (92).

This statement sounded like a threat.

On February 2, 1924, at the International Red Aid conference
, Zinoviev stated that the situation in Europe was
as follows :

"One cannot expect to see tranquility, peace, even apparent peace, established there, even temporarily.

Europe is entering a phase of decisive events...
Germany, it seems, is heading towards an
acute civil war" (93).

At the beginning of February 1924, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of
the Comintern, in a resolution on the lessons learned from the events
in Germany, declared :

"The German Communist Party must not remove
the question of insurrection and the conquest of power from the agenda
. On the contrary(!), this question must
be posed to us concretely and with all its
urgency" (94).

On March 26, 1924, the Executive Committee of the Comintern wrote in
its message to the KP.D. :

"The error in the assessment of the pace of events
(what error ? LT) committed in October 1923,
because of great difficulties in our party. But it is only
an episode. The fundamental assessment remains" (95).

The EC draws the following conclusion from all of this :

"The KPD must, as before, continue with
all its might its work of arming the
working class" (96).

The great historical drama of 1923, the abandonment without a fight
of a grand revolutionary position, was considered, six
months later, as an episode, only an episode. Europe
continues to suffer the extremely painful consequences of this
"episode." The fact that the Communist International was able,
for four years, to avoid convening its congress, as well as
the successive defeats of the left within the Comintern itself,
are also a result of the "episode" of 1923.

The Fifth Congress convened eight months after the defeat of the
German proletariat, when all the consequences of the
catastrophe were already evident. At that time, there was less need
to predict the future than to study the present. The essential tasks
of the Fifth Congress should have consisted, firstly, in
clearly and ruthlessly naming the defeat and
exposing its "subjective" cause, without allowing anyone
to hide behind "objective" conditions ; secondly
, in establishing that a new stage was beginning in
which the masses would retreat, social democracy would grow, and
the Communist Party would lose influence ; and thirdly, in preparing
the Comintern so that it would not be caught unawares, equipping it with the
methods necessary for defensive battles, and consolidating its
organization until the next turning point in the situation.

On all these questions, the congress took the opposite stance.
Zinoviev defined for the congress the meaning of what had happened in
Germany :

"We were waiting for the German revolution, and it
never came."

In reality, the revolution was within its rights to respond to them :

"I came, but you gentlemen were late
for your appointment."

The congress leaders, as well as Brandler, believed
that we had "overestimated" the situation, whereas in
reality we had assigned it a low price, too late. Zinoviev
was easily consoled for his supposed "overestimation" :
he saw the main problem elsewhere.

"The overestimation of the situation was not the worst thing.
The worst thing, as the example of Saxony showed, was the fact that there were many remnants of social democracy
in the ranks of our party " (98)

Zinoviev did not see the catastrophe and he was not the only one.

With him, the entire Fifth Congress missed the greatest defeat
of the world revolution. The events in Germany were
essentially analyzed from the perspective of the communists' policy
... in the Saxon Landtag. In its resolution, the congress
approved the Comintern Executive Committee's condemnation of the "opportunistic attitude of the German Central Committee and
especially of the deviation from the united front tactics that occurred
during the governmental experiment in
Saxony" (99).

It's roughly the same as condemning a
murderer "primarily" for not taking off his hat when
entering the victim's house. And Zinoviev insisted :

"The Saxon experience created a new situation.
It threatened to open the liquidation of the revolutionary tactics
of the Comintern" (100)

Since the "Saxon experiment" was doomed, and Brandler
dismissed, all that remained was to move on to the next item on the agenda :

"The general political prospects,"
Zinoviev and the congress assured him, "remain essentially
the same as before. The situation contains within it the seeds of revolution.
New class battles are already underway again
; a gigantic struggle is taking place—" etc. (101)

How fragile and insecure such “leftism” is,
trapping mosquitoes in its sieve while letting
camels through ! Those who could see the situation with their own eyes, who
emphasized the importance of the October defeat, who demonstrated
that a long period of revolutionary retreat and a
provisional consolidation (“stabilization”) of capitalism, with
all the political consequences that follow, were
inevitable—these were the very people the leaders of the Fifth Congress tried to
brand as opportunists and liquidators of the revolution. This
was the main objective of Zinoviev and Bukharin. Ruth
Fischer, who, like them, underestimated the defeat of the
previous year, noted in the Russian Opposition
“the loss of the prospect of world revolution,
the lack of faith in the proximity of the German and
European revolutions, a hopeless pessimism, the liquidation of the
European revolution, etc.” (102)

It is unnecessary to explain that those most directly responsible for the
defeats were the most ardent in crying out against the "liquidators,"
that is, against those who refused to call the defeats
victories. Thus, Kolarov (103) thundered against Radek, who had
dared to consider the defeat of the Bulgarian party as decisive :

"Neither in June nor in September was the party's defeat
decisive. The Bulgarian Communist Party is strong and is preparing for
new battles" (at the Fifth Congress).

Instead of a Marxist analysis of the defeats, there is an
irresponsible bureaucratic bravado that triumphs across
the board. Yet, Bolshevik strategy is incompatible
with complacent and passive "kolarovchina."

There were many just and indispensable things in the
work of the Fifth Congress. The struggle against the right-wing tendencies that
were trying to rear their heads could not be
postponed at all. But it went astray in confusion, lost due to the
radically flawed judgment made about the situation : all the cards were shuffled. Those who simply understood yesterday, today, or tomorrow's events better or more clearly
were lumped into the right-wing camp . If, at the Third Congress, the leftists of the time had triumphed, Lenin, for the same reasons, would have been classified as right-wing along with (Paul) Levi, Clara Zetkin (104), and others. The confusion of ideas created by the erroneous political orientation of the Fifth Congress subsequently became a source of new and great misfortunes.

The political judgment formulated by the congress was fully
applied in the economic sphere as well. The symptoms
of the economic consolidation of the German bourgeoisie
, which had already had time to manifest themselves, were denied
or considered negligible. Varga (105), who
always presents economic facts by adapting them to the
dominant political trend of the day, noted once again
in his report :

"There is no prospect of reforming
capitalism" (106)

A year later, when the sanitation was, somewhat
belatedly, renamed "stabilization," Varga discovered it with zeal...
after the fact. In the meantime, the Opposition had already been accused of
not recognizing stabilization, since it had dared
to see it begin a year and a half earlier and since, as early as 1925,
it had pointed out the tendencies that were undermining it (107)

The Fifth Congress saw the fundamental political processes
and groupings of ideas in the curved mirror of its
misguided orientation : it was from this that its resolution describing
the Russian Opposition as a "petty-bourgeois deviation" was born. History,
in its own way, corrected this error two years later by
forcing Zinoviev, who had been the public accuser at the Fifth Congress
, to publicly acknowledge that the core
of the 1923 Opposition had been right on the fundamental questions
raised by the struggle (108).

The strategic error of the Fifth Congress led to a misunderstanding
of the processes unfolding within
German and international social democracy. At the Congress, the only topics discussed were
its decline, its disintegration, its collapse. Referring
to the results of the Reichstag elections, which gave
the Communist Party 3,700,000 votes, Zinoviev asserted :

“If we have in the German parliament a ratio
of 62 communists to 100 social democrats, this
should serve to prove to everyone how
close we are to winning over the majority of the German working class
.” (109)

Zinoviev did not understand the dynamics of this
process at all : during that year and those that followed,
the influence of the Communist Party did not grow, but declined : its
3,700,000 votes were only the imposing remnant of the
decisive influence that this party had had at the end of 1923 over the majority of the
German proletariat : in later elections, this number
was inevitably bound to decrease.

While social democracy, in 1923, was unraveling
like a rotten mat, it recovered, on the contrary, after the
defeat of the revolution, and developed largely at the
expense of communism. As we had foreseen—how could
we not have ?—our prescience was attributed to our
“pessimism.” Is it still necessary, after the last elections of
May 1928, in which social democracy garnered more than
9 million votes, to demonstrate that we were right when we
said at the beginning of 1924, and wrote, that the rebirth of
social democracy was inevitable for a certain period, and
that the “optimists” were grossly mistaken in singing
its requiems ? It was above all the Fifth Congress that committed a
gross error.

The second youth of social democracy, with all the
hallmarks of a summer of spring, is obviously not eternal.
The death of social democracy is inevitable. But its
timing is nowhere predetermined. It also depends on us.
To shorten its duration, we must face the facts,
recognize the shifts in the political situation in a timely manner,
call a defeat a defeat, and learn to anticipate the future.

If German social democracy
still constitutes a force of several million today, particularly within the
working class, this is due to two immediate causes : firstly
, the capitulation defeat of the KPD in the autumn of 1923, and secondly
, the misguided strategic direction of the Fifth Congress.
While in January 1924 the ratio between
Communist and Social Democratic voters was almost 2 to 3, four years
later this ratio had worsened to only 1 to 3.

In other words, during this period taken as a whole,
we have not moved closer to, but further from,
winning over the majority of the working class. And this despite the
undeniable strengthening of our party over the
past year, which can and must, with a just policy, become the
starting point for truly winning over the majority.

We will return later to the political consequences
of the attitude of the Fifth Congress. But is it not clear from the outset
that one cannot seriously speak of Bolshevik strategy if one
cannot take in at a glance both the fundamental curve of our
era as a whole and its various twists and turns at all
times, which have for the leadership of the party the same
importance as the curves of a railway track for the
locomotive engineer : going at full speed in the middle of a turn leads
directly onto the embankment.

It was only a few months ago, however, that Pravda
more or less clearly acknowledged the accuracy of the judgment
we had made precisely at the end of 1923. On January 28th
, it wrote :

"The phase of relative (!) apathy and depression which
began after the defeat of 1923 and which allowed German capital
to consolidate its positions, is beginning to pass
" (110).

The "relative" depression that began in the autumn of 1923
did not begin to pass until 1928. This observation, more
than four years late, constitutes a merciless condemnation
of the erroneous orientation of the Fifth Congress as well as of the system of
leadership which, far from disclosing and highlighting the errors
committed, covers them up, thus aggravating the confusion in ideas.

A draft program that makes no judgment on the
events of 1923 or on the fundamental error of the Fifth Congress,
merely turns its back on the real problems of the
revolutionary strategy of the proletariat during the imperialist era.

6. “The Democratic-Pacifist Era” and Fascism

The capitulation of the KPD in the autumn of 1923, the disappearance
of the gigantic proletarian threat, inevitably weakened
the positions of the Communist Party, but also those of
fascism (111). A civil war, even if capitalism prevails,
undermines the conditions under which capitalist exploitation is exercised
. From that time, from the end of 1923, we had
spoken out against the overestimation of the forces of German fascism and
the danger it represented, and we had emphasized that
fascism would be relegated to the background, while the forefront
would be occupied throughout Europe for
some time by democratic and pacifist groups
(the Bloc des Gauches in France, the Labour Party in England),
whose strengthening, in turn, would enhance
German social democracy. Instead of understanding this
inevitable process and organizing the struggle along a
new front line, the official leadership continued to identify fascism and
social democracy and to prophesy their demise in
the course of the impending civil war.

The question of US/Europe relations was closely
linked to the question of social democracy and fascism.

It was the defeat of the German revolution in 1923 that allowed
American capitalism to begin implementing its plans
to reduce Europe to servitude, "peacefully"... for the
time being. Under these circumstances, the American problem had to be addressed
in its full scope. Yet the leadership of
Congress simply missed the point. It considered the
situation within Europe without noting that a
prolonged postponement of the European revolution had suddenly shifted
the axis of world relations toward an American offensive
against Europe. This offensive took the form of an
economic "consolidation" of Europe, its normalization,
its pacification, and the "purification" of
democratic principles. It wasn't just the ruined petty bourgeois
, but also the ordinary worker who said to themselves : "If the Communist Party
couldn't triumph, perhaps social democracy will give us
not victory—we don't expect that from them—but a
piece of bread, by reviving industry with American gold."
It should have been understood that the infamous fiction of
American pacifism, coupled with dollars (after the defeat of the
German revolution), was becoming, and was becoming, the
most important political factor in the life of Europe.
German social democracy swelled thanks to this leaven, but it was
also largely due to it that the French Radicals and
the Labour Party made progress.

To confront this new enemy front, it would have been necessary
to demonstrate that bourgeois Europe could only live and survive
as a financial vassal of the United States, and that
the latter's pacifism reflected its desire to impose
starvation rations on Europe. But instead of taking precisely
this perspective as the starting point for the struggle against
social democracy with its new cult of Americanism, the
leadership of the Communist International turned
its weapon in the opposite direction : we were given a mediocre
and foolish theory of normalized imperialism, without war or
revolutions, based on American rationing.

During the same February session in which the presidium of the
executive committee of the Communist International, four months before the congress, placed the insurrection "in all its concrete urgency"
on the agenda of the German party , this presidium assessed the situation in France, where parliamentary elections "on the left" were then approaching, in the following way :

"This pre-election activity also affects the most mediocre and insignificant parties , and even
defunct political groups. The Socialist Party, under the
spotlight of the upcoming elections, is reviving and expanding its reach." 112

While in France a wave of
pacifist petty-bourgeois "left" was clearly brewing, drawing in
large sectors of the working class and simultaneously weakening both the
party of the proletariat and the fascist detachments of Capital—
in short, while the victory of the "
Left Bloc" was drawing near—the leadership of the Comintern adopted a
directly opposite perspective and categorically denied the possibility of a
pacifist phase. On the eve of the May 1924 elections, it
referred to the French Socialist Party, that is, the defender of
the left wing of petty-bourgeois pacifism, as a "
political group already dead." We protested at the time in a
special letter addressed to the delegation of the Communist
(Bolshevik) Party of the USSR against this hasty judgment
of the Social-Patriotic Party. In vain ! The Comintern leadership
stubbornly maintained that it was the Left that was turning a blind
eye to the facts. This was the origin of the controversy
over democratic pacifism, a disfigured, perverted and
tainted politics, as always in recent years, which
brought so much trouble to the conscience of the parties of the Comintern. The
representatives of the Opposition were accused of having
reformist prejudices, simply because we did not share
those of the leadership of the Comintern and because we had foreseen in time
that the defeat without a fight of the German proletariat would
inevitably bring onto the scene (after a brief intensification of
fascist tendencies) the petty-bourgeois parties and strengthen
social democracy.

It has already been mentioned above that at the SRI conference,
three or four months before the victory of the Labour Party and the Bloc
des Gauches in France, Zinoviev, clearly arguing
against me, declared :

“In almost all of Europe, the situation is such that one cannot expect to see tranquility, peace, even apparent peace,
established there, even temporarily… Europe is entering a phase of decisive events… Germany, it seems, is heading towards acute civil war .” 113

Zinoviev seems to have completely forgotten that, at the
4th Congress, back in 1922, I had already succeeded in committee, against the
rather stubborn resistance of Zinoviev himself and Bukharin
, in introducing an amendment (admittedly quite watered down)
into the Congress resolution ; it spoke of the future establishment
of a "pacifist and democratic era", a probable step
on the path to the political decline of the bourgeois state as
an antechamber to the domination of communism or...
fascism.

At the Fifth Congress, which was held after the emergence of
"left-wing" governments in England and France, Zinoviev
very aptly recalled my amendment, which he read aloud :

"The current international political situation is
characterized by fascism, martial law, and the
growing wave of white terror against the proletariat. But this
does not preclude the possibility that, in the near future, in
the most important countries, an open bourgeois reaction will give way to
a 'democratic and pacifist era'..."

He added with satisfaction :

"This was said in 1922. Thus, the democratic-pacifist era
was clearly predicted by the Communist International
a year and a half ago." 114

The truth is the truth. The prediction for which I was long
criticized as a "pacifist" deviation (which was supposedly mine,
not that of the course of events) arrived at just the right time at the Fifth Congress
during the honeymoon of the MacDonald and Herriot ministries. 115

Unfortunately, this is generally the case with forecasts.

It must be added that Zinoviev and the majority of the
Fifth Congress took the old perspective of
the "pacifist and democratic era" as a stage in the disintegration
of capitalism too literally. This is precisely what Zinoviev preached at the
Fifth Congress : the "pacifist-democratic era" is a symptom of
the disintegration of capitalism. He reiterated this in his
closing speech :

“I repeat that the democratic-pacifist era
is precisely a symptom of the disintegration of capitalism and
its incurable crisis.” 116

This would have been true had it not been for the Ruhr crisis, had
development proceeded more steadily, without this
historical "leap." And it would have been doubly and triply
true had the German proletariat triumphed in 1923. In that
case, the regimes of MacDonald and Herriot would have been nothing more than
English and French "Kerenskyisms." But the
Ruhr crisis erupted, clearly raising the question of
who would be in charge.
The German proletariat did not win a victory, but rather
suffered a decisive defeat, and in such a way that it was bound to encourage and
strengthen the German bourgeoisie to the highest degree. Faith
in the revolution was undermined throughout Europe for
years to come. Under these conditions, the MacDonald and
Herriot governments had no significance whatsoever of Kerenskyism, nor
in general of the disintegration of the bourgeoisie : they could and
should simply become the ephemeral precursors of
more serious, more solid, and more
self-assured bourgeois governments. The Fifth Congress did not understand this : indeed, having
failed to properly assess the proportions of the
German catastrophe, reducing it to the mere question of the
farce in the Saxon Landtag, it did not realize that the
proletariat of Europe, on the entire front, was already in political
retreat, that the task was not insurrection, but a
new orientation, rearguard battles, and the consolidation
, especially within the trade unions, of the party's organizational positions
.

It is in connection with this question of "the era" that
a polemic on fascism developed, no less distorted
and misguided. The Opposition explained that the bourgeoisie
only advances its fascist instrument when an
immediate revolutionary peril threatens the very foundations of its regime, when the
normal organs of the bourgeois state prove insufficient. In
this sense, active fascism corresponds to a state of civil war waged
by capitalist society against the insurgent proletariat. Conversely
, the bourgeoisie is obliged to put forward its
left-wing, social-democratic instrument either, before the
civil war, to deceive, demobilize, and disintegrate the proletariat, or
, after having seriously defeated the broad masses of the people,
when, in order to restore the normal regime, it is forced to mobilize them
in parliamentary life and, with them, the workers who
no longer have faith in the revolution. To counter
this absolutely indisputable theoretical analysis,
justified by the entire course of the struggle, the Comintern leadership put
forward an absurdly simplistic assertion about the identity of
social democracy and fascism. Starting from the undeniable fact
that social democracy is just as committed to the
fundamental principles of society as fascism, and that it is always
ready, in times of danger, to advance its Noske (their principles), the
Comintern leadership swept aside, in a single stroke and in a general manner, any
political difference between social democracy and fascism, and, at the
same time, the distinction between the period of
open civil war and that of the "normalization" of the
class struggle. In short, everything was overturned, muddled, and mixed up
to preserve the appearance of an orientation toward the
immediate development of civil war, as if nothing
special had happened in the autumn of 1923 in Germany and Europe : just
an episode.

To show the direction and level of this policy, we
must cite Stalin's article "On the International Situation
" 118 • Polemically attacking me, he writes :

“Some believe that the bourgeoisie came to
‘pacifism' and ‘democracy' not out of necessity,
but of its own volition, through the effect of its free will.”
This fundamental historical and philosophical thesis, on
which it would be humiliating to dwell, was followed by two
essential political conclusions :

“Firstly, it is false that fascism is merely
a fighting organization of the bourgeoisie.
Fascism is not simply a military and
technical category.”

It is difficult to understand why a
combat organization within bourgeois society should be considered a
technical and not a political "category" ! But what exactly is
fascism ? There is an indirect answer to this question :

"Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing
of fascism."

Social democracy can be described as the left wing of
bourgeois society : this definition is quite accurate,
provided it is not interpreted too
simplistically. It must not be forgotten that social democracy continues
to involve millions of workers ; it is forced to reckon,
within certain limits, not only with the will of its
bourgeois bosses, but also with the interests of its proletarian constituents
whom it exploits. But it would be absurd to define it
as "the moderate wing of fascism." Where, then, does
bourgeois democracy fit into all of this ? To find one's bearings, even in the
most basic way, in politics, one must not lump everything together haphazardly
, but distinguish and see that social democracy and fascism
constitute the poles of the bourgeois front, united in times of
danger, but poles nonetheless. Is it necessary to insist on this today
, after the elections of May 1928, characterized both by the
decline of fascism and the growth of social democracy 119, to
which, incidentally, the Communist Party was once
again proposing to form a united front of the working class ?

The article continues :

“Secondly, it is false that the decisive battles
have already taken place, that the proletariat has been defeated, and that,
consequently, the bourgeoisie has consolidated itself. There have
not yet been any decisive battles, if only
because there have not yet been any mass Bolshevik parties
.”

The bourgeoisie could not have consolidated itself because there
had been no battle. And there were no battles,
if only because there was no Bolshevik party. Thus, what
prevents the bourgeoisie from strengthening itself is... the absence
of a Bolshevik party. In reality, it is precisely because
there was no Bolshevik leadership, not a party
, that the bourgeoisie was able to consolidate its position. If
an army, in a critical situation, capitulates without a fight
to the enemy, this perfectly replaces a "
decisive battle," in politics as in war. As early as 1850,
Engels taught that a party that lets a
revolutionary opportunity slip away disappears from the scene for a long time. But who
is still unaware that Engels, who lived "before imperialism
," is now obsolete ? This is precisely what Stalin writes :

"Under imperialism, it is impossible for
battles to be fought for dictatorship if there are no similar
(Bolshevik) parties."

We are reduced to believing that these battles were possible in
Engels' time, when the law of unequal evolution had not
yet been discovered.

This entire series of essays is crowned,
as is fitting, by a political prediction :

"Finally, it is also false... that 'pacifism' can
consolidate the power of the bourgeoisie and postpone the
revolution indefinitely."

Nevertheless, there was indeed a postponement, not
in accordance with Stalin's ideas, but with Engels's. A year
later, when it was clear even to the blind that
the bourgeoisie's position had strengthened and the revolution
had been set back indefinitely, Stalin began
accusing us of... denying stabilization. This accusation became particularly
insistent during the period when "stabilization"
was beginning to crack again, when
a new revolutionary wave was swelling in England and China. And all this
despairing confusion served as a guiding principle ! It must
be pointed out that the definition of fascism and its relationship to
social democracy given in Chapter II of the Project, despite
the ambiguities deliberately tolerated to maintain a link with the
past, is far more reasonable and accurate than the
Stalinist scheme cited above, which was essentially that of the Fifth Congress.

But this slight progress does not settle the matter. A program
of the Communist International cannot, after the experience
of the past decade, avoid characterizing what a
revolutionary situation is, how it forms and how it
disappears, pointing out the classic errors made in
the analysis of this situation, explaining how the mechanic
should drive around corners - instilling in the parties this
truth that there are situations where the success of the
world revolution depends on two or three days of struggle.

7. Far-left politics and the leaven of the right

After the turbulent period of 1923 came the period
of the long ebb, which in the language of strategy meant :
an orderly retreat, rearguard battles, entrenchment in
mass organizations, and a detailed review to hone and sharpen
theoretical and political weapons. This position was called
"liquidationist." In recent years,
this notion, like other terms in the Bolshevik vocabulary, has been grossly abused : it
was not about teaching, not about educating, but about sowing discord and
misleading. The spirit of liquidation is the renunciation
of revolution, the substitution of reformist methods
for its paths and methods. Leninist politics has nothing in
common with this spirit, but it also has nothing to do with
this way of neglecting changes in the objective situation,
of verbally maintaining the course towards insurrection when the
situation is already turning its back on it, when it is necessary to take up again
the path of work in the masses, long, tenacious, systematic,
meticulous, to prepare the party for a new revolution.

A person needs a certain type of movement when
going up stairs, and another when going down. The
most dangerous position is when, after
blowing out their birthday candle, a person prepares to lift their foot in front of a
descending staircase. Falls, bumps, and dislocations are then inevitable.

The leadership of the Communist International did everything in its power in 1924
to stifle criticism of the experiment of the German October
and, more generally, all criticism. For its part, it
stubbornly repeated : "The staircase leads upwards." It is
therefore no surprise that the directives of the Fifth Congress, implemented in the context
of a retreat, provoked cruel falls and political upheavals
.

Issue 5-6 of Mitteilungsblatt (Linke Opposition der
KPD) 120 of March 1st, asserted :

"The biggest mistake of the Left at this
party congress (the one in Frankfurt, in the spring of 1924, during
which the Left took the lead) was that it did not
tirelessly reiterate to the party the gravity of the defeat of
1923, that it did not draw the necessary conclusions from it, that it
did not explain to the party, calmly and without embellishment,
the trends of the relative stabilization of capital, and
consequently, did not formulate the program or the slogans for the
period that was beginning ; it was perfectly possible to
do this while emphasizing, with the indispensable rigor
, the theses of the program : that is what it would have been
right to do" (emphasis added. LT)

These lines had shown that a part of the
German Left which, at the Fifth Congress, had taken part in the struggle against
our supposed "liquidation spirit", had indeed understood the
lessons of 1923-1924. This is what subsequently made possible
a rapprochement between us on a principled basis.

It was 1924 that marked a turning point in the situation. Yet
, it was only a year and a half later that this
abrupt shift ("stabilization") was recognized. It is therefore not surprising
that 1924-1925 were years of
"left-wing" errors and putschist experiments. The
Bulgarian terrorist adventure, as well as the tragic story of the Estonian uprising
of December 1924, were explosions of despair
resulting from a misguided approach. The fact that these attempts
to disrupt the historical process by following the path of putschism
were not subjected to critical scrutiny led to a
relapse of this malaise in Canton at the end of 1927. In politics, even
minor errors do not go unpunished ; this is
even more true for major ones. But the worst thing is to conceal one's
errors, to thwart criticism, and to prevent
a sound Marxist judgment from being made about them.

This is not the history of the Communist International over
the past five years that we are writing. We
are merely illustrating, through facts,
the two strategic lines at the fundamental stages of this period.
In doing so, we are simultaneously highlighting the futility of a program for
which all these questions do not exist. We cannot, therefore
, describe here, even by simply outlining its
essential features, the full picture of the contradictions in which
the parties of the Communist International struggled, caught between the
directives of the Fifth Congress on the one hand, and political reality on the other.
Certainly, not everywhere these contradictions were resolved by
convulsions as disastrous as those in Bulgaria and Estonia in 1924.

But everywhere the parties felt powerless, failed
to respond to the aspirations of the masses, donned blinders
, and lost their way. In party agitation and propaganda,
in trade union activity, in the parliamentary rostrum, everywhere, the
communists dragged along the ball and chain of the erroneous position
taken by the Fifth Congress. Each party was more or less a victim
of the initial misdirection, chasing phantoms,
neglecting real processes, transforming revolutionary slogans
into empty rhetoric, compromising itself in the
eyes of the masses, and losing its footing. To make matters worse, the
Comintern press, then as now, could not gather and
publish facts and figures concerning the activities of the communist parties
in recent years. After defeats,
mistakes, and failures, the leadership of the epigones preferred to retreat
and punish blindly.

As reality increasingly and
cruelly refuted this, the leadership had to resort more and more to
fabricated factors. Losing its grip a little more each day, the Executive Committee of
the Comintern was forced to discover revolutionary forces and outbursts
where no trace of them existed and had to
cling to rotten ropes to maintain its balance.

Since there were evident
shifts to the right within the proletariat, the Communist International entered
a phase of idealizing the peasantry, exaggerating without
scrutinizing the symptoms of its "break" with
bourgeois society, lending vivid colors to all sorts of ephemeral peasant organizations and adulating "peasant"
demagogues .

The task of the proletarian vanguard, which consists of
a long and tenacious struggle against the bourgeoisie and
pseudo-peasant demagoguery to influence the most disinherited strata
of the village, was increasingly replaced by the hope that the
peasantry would play a direct and independent revolutionary role
on a national and international scale.

During 1924, that is, during the year of
"stabilization", the communist press was full of completely fanciful information
about the power of the Peasant International
which had just been founded 121 •

Its representative, Dombal 122, said in a report that, six months after its founding, it
already had several million members.

It was then that the Radié scandal erupted, involving the leader of the
Croatian "peasant" party who, to increase his chances of becoming
a minister in Belgrade, the white party, had diverted his route from Zagreb,
the green party, to Moscow, the red party. On July 9, 1924, Zinoviev
recounted his new "victory" in a report on the Fifth Congress
to party members in Leningrad :

“Currently, significant movements are taking place among the peasantry . You have all certainly
heard of Radié's Croatian Peasant Party. Radié
is currently in Moscow. He is a true
people's leader [...] He is unanimously followed by all the
poor and middle-class peasants of Croatia [...] Radié has decided to join
the International on behalf of his party. We consider
this event very important. The founding of the
Peasant International is a matter of the utmost importance.
Some comrades did not want to believe that
a large organization would emerge from it [...] Today, a large
auxiliary mass is marching towards us : the peasantry.” 124
And so on, in the same vein.

To counter Radié, the "true popular leader," there
was, on the other side of the Ocean, the "leader" La Follette 125 • To
advance more quickly the "auxiliary mass" of
American farmers, Pepper 126, the delegate of the Communist International
127, led the young and weak American Communist Party
into an absurd and shameful adventure by forming the Workers and Farmers' Party around
La Follette in order to overthrow
American capitalism more quickly 128 •

The good news of an approaching revolution in the
United States, supported by farmers, permeated all the
speeches and articles of the official leaders of the Executive Committee of
the Communist International at the time. In his report to the 5th Congress,
Kolarov asserted :

“In the United States, small farmers have formed a
farmers' and peasants' party which is becoming increasingly radicalized
, drawing closer to the communists and embracing the idea
of creating a workers' and peasants' government in the United States.
” 129

Nothing more, nothing less !

A member of La Follette's organization, Green, from
Nebraska, went to the peasant congress in Moscow ; he too
joined something, and then, as usual, at the
St. Paul Conference 130, he helped to thwart the
Communist Party when it tried, without much vigor, to
begin to realize the grandiose intentions of Pepper, the
advisor to Count Karolyi 131, the ultra-leftist of the Fifth Congress, the
reformer of Marxism, one of the butchers of the revolution in
Hungary 132 •

In its August 29, 1924 issue, Pravda lamented :

"The American proletariat as a whole has not
yet risen to the level of understanding the necessity of a
party, even one as collaborationist as the
English Labour Party." 133

However, about a month earlier, in his report to the
activists in Leningrad, Zinoviev asserted :

“Several million farmers, whether they like it or not (!),
are being harshly pushed towards the working class by the
agrarian crisis.” 134

"And directly to the workers' and peasants' government !"
added Kolarov.

The press kept repeating that a "Workers and Farmers' Party" would soon be created in America,
a party that would not be
purely proletarian but nonetheless a class party
"to overthrow capital." What a party that is not
purely proletarian but still has a class character means is
something no astrologer, on either side of the ocean,
can explain to us. In the end, it was simply a
pepper-flavored version of the "two-class workers' and peasants' parties"
that we will discuss at greater length in connection with the
Chinese revolution. It will suffice to point out here that the reactionary idea of
non-proletarian parties that would nevertheless be
class parties developed entirely on the supposed
"left-wing" politics of 1924, which, to conceal its
failures, clung to Radié, LaFollette, and the inflated figures
of the Peasant International.

“We are now witnessing,” declares Milioutine, 135,
“the extremely significant and important process
of the splitting of the
peasant masses, who are separating from the bourgeoisie, of the intervention
of the peasantry against capitalism, and of the
ever-greater strengthening of the united front of the peasantry
and the working class struggling in capitalist countries
against the capitalist system.” 136

Throughout 1924, the press of the
Communist International tirelessly spoke of the
general "radicalization" of the "peasant masses." As if one could
expect any meaningful result from this radicalization of the peasants,
mostly imaginary, in a period when, clearly
, the workers were moving to the right, when social democracy was
gaining strength, and when the bourgeoisie was consolidating its power !

We will find the same error in political vision at the end
of 1927 and the beginning of 1928 with regard to China. After any
great and profound revolutionary crisis, when the proletariat has
suffered a decisive defeat, the consequences of which are lasting,
for a long time afterward, bursts of indignation erupt
in the backward, semi-proletarian masses of the cities and the
countryside, like ripples after
a rock falls into water. If the leadership assigns these ripples
their own significance and interprets them, without taking into account the
processes underway in the working class, as signs of
the approach of revolution, know that this is a symptom
that undoubtedly foreshadows that the leadership is heading toward
adventures like those in Estonia and Bulgaria in 1924 or
Canton in 1927.

During this same period of ultra-leftism, the
Chinese Communist Party was harassed until it joined
the Guomindang for a few years, which the Fifth Congress proclaimed a "
sympathizing party," without seriously attempting to define its class character . The further one goes, the more the idealization of the "revolutionary national bourgeoisie"
develops . It is in this same way that, in the East, the so-called left-wing course, which closes its eyes to reality and burns with impatience, lays the foundations for the opportunism that follows it. It was Martynov who was called upon to codify it : Martynov was, for the Chinese proletariat, an especially reliable advisor since he himself, during the three Russian revolutions, had trotted along behind the petty bourgeoisie.

In artificially shortening the time frame, they
clung not only to Radié, LaFollette, and the millions of
peasants of Dombal and Pepper, but they also constructed
a radically false perspective for England. The weakness of the
English Communist Party then created the need to replace it
as quickly as possible with some more impressive force. It was then that
a misjudgment of the tendencies of
English trade unionism became apparent. Zinoviev suggested that he believed the
revolution would come not through the narrow gate of the
English Communist Party, but by passing through the broad barrier of the
trade unions. The struggle, through the
Communist Party, to win over the masses organized by the trade
unions was replaced by the hope of using the ready-made apparatus of these unions as quickly as possible for revolutionary purposes
. It was from
this perspective that the policy of the Anglo-
Russian committee developed, which dealt a blow to both the Soviet Union and the
English working class, which only yielded to it in this respect after the
defeat in China...

The October Lessons, written as early as the summer of 1924, refute this
idea of hastening events by resorting
to the friendship of Purcell and Cook 141, as demonstrated by the
subsequent development of this idea :

“The proletarian revolution cannot triumph without
a party, outside the party, alongside the party, or through a
party substitute. This is the principal lesson of the last
decade. It is true that English trade unions can
become a powerful lever of the proletarian revolution :
under certain conditions and for a certain period, they
can even replace the workers' soviets. But they cannot
play this role outside the Communist Party, and even
less so against it : they can only play it on the
condition that Communist influence becomes decisive
in the trade unions. We have paid too high a price to
arrive at this conclusion about the role and importance of the party
in the proletarian revolution to so easily renounce it
or simply diminish it.” 142

The same problem is posed more broadly in "Where Is
England Heading ?", which, from beginning to end, is devoted
to demonstrating the idea that the English revolution,
too, can only come about through the communist gate. With a just, courageous, and uncompromising policy
, without illusions about shortcuts, the
English Communist Party can grow and mature in leaps and
rise in a few years to the level of its tasks.

The leftist illusions of 1924 flourished from a
right-wing ferment. To conceal from others and from oneself
the significance of the errors and defeats of 1923, it was necessary to deny
the rightward shift taking place within the proletariat and
to systematically exaggerate, with optimism, the
revolutionary processes underway in other classes. This was the beginning
of the slide that led from the proletarian line to the line of
centrism, that is, the line of the petty bourgeoisie. With the
consolidation of stability, it would later shed
its ultra-leftist mask and reveal itself as blatantly collaborationist
, in the USSR, China, England, Germany
, and everywhere else.

8. Center-right sliding period

The policies of the major communist parties,
established according to the direction decided at the Fifth Congress,
quickly proved utterly ineffective. The errors of pseudo-“leftism
,” which delayed the development of the communist parties
, subsequently led to a new empirical zigzag,
namely an accelerated shift to the right. Once bitten, twice shy
. The “left-wing” central committees of a whole
series of parties were deposed as abusively as they
had been installed before the Fifth Congress. The leftism of the
adventurers gave way to an openly displayed opportunism
of the center-right type. To understand the nature and trajectory of this
rightward shift in the organization, it is necessary to recall that as recently as
September 1924, Stalin, who presided over this shift,
considered the transfer of party leadership to the hands of
Maslow, Ruth Fischer, Treint, Suzanne Girault, etc. was
the expression of the Bolshevization of the parties, responding to the
demands of the Bolshevik workers who are moving towards revolution
and "want to have revolutionary leaders" 143 •

“The last six months,” Stalin wrote, “are remarkable
in that they present a total break in the
communist parties of the West in the direction of the
resolute liquidation of social-democratic remnants, the Bolshevization
of party cadres, and the isolation of opportunist elements
.” 144

About ten months later, the authentic "Bolsheviks," the
"revolutionary leaders," were labeled social democrats
and renegades, removed from leadership and expelled from the party.

Despite the panic-driven nature of this change of
leadership and the frequent use of mechanical, crude and disloyal measures
by the apparatus, it is impossible to draw
a rigorous line of demarcation in ideas between the phase
of ultra-left politics and the opportunistic slippage politics
that followed it.

In the problems of industry and peasantry in the
USSR, of the colonial bourgeoisie, of "peasant" parties
in capitalist countries, of socialism in one country, of the role
of the party in the proletarian revolution, revisionist tendencies
were in full bloom in 1924-1925 : concealed
under the banner of the struggle against "Trotskyism", these tendencies
found a brilliant opportunistic expression in the resolutions
of the conference of the CP(b) of the USSR in April 1925.

The right-wing course, taken as a whole, was a
half-blind, purely empiricist, and
belated attempt to adapt to the setback suffered by the development of the revolution due
to the defeat of 1923. Bukharin initially
approached the question by considering the "permanent" development
of the revolution in the most direct and mechanical sense
of the word. Bukharin admitted no "pause," no interruption
, no retreat : he considered it a revolutionary duty
to continue the "offensive" under any circumstances.

Stalin's article cited above, "On the International Situation
," which constitutes a kind of program (it was
Stalin's first intervention on international problems), shows
that the second author of the project also forced himself, in the
first period of the struggle against "Trotskyism," to admit
the same mechanical "left-wing" conception for which there
never existed, and invariably, only "the disintegration" of
social democracy, the "radicalization of the workers," the "growth
" of communist parties, the "approaching" revolution.

As for the one who looks around him and makes distinctions,
he is a "liquidator".

After the turning point in the European situation in 1923, it
took a year and a half for this "tendency" to sense something
new and, in the midst of panic, to radically transform itself
. Lacking any comprehensive understanding of our
era and the trends it contained, the leadership proceeded
tentatively (Stalin), supplementing the fragments of conclusions thus
obtained with scholastic frameworks that it constantly renewed
(Bukharin). This is why, on the whole, its
political line constituted a series of zigzags. Its ideological line
was a kaleidoscope of frameworks that tended to push
each element of Stalin's zigzags to the point of absurdity.

The Sixth Congress would act wisely if it decided to create
a special commission tasked with compiling
all of Bukharin's theories into a single body to serve as the basis for
its argumentation, for example, for each stage of the
Anglo-Russian committee : they would need to be arranged chronologically,
organized into a system to attempt to trace the complex diagram
of thought they contain. This would be a
strategic diagram rich in lessons. The same applies to the
Chinese revolution, the economic development of the USSR
, and all other less important issues.
Blind empiricism amplified by scholasticism—this is the
orientation that has not yet been ruthlessly condemned.

This empiricism had fatal consequences in three
crucial areas : the domestic policy of the USSR, the
Chinese revolution, and the Anglo-Russian Committee. It also
manifested itself in the same way, but in a less disastrous manner,
with regard to the immediate consequences in all matters of
Communist International policy.

In the internal problems of the USSR, the policy of
slippage was characterized sufficiently fully
in the Platform of the Bolshevik-Leninists (Opposition) 145 •

We are obliged to limit ourselves here to referring to it. The
Platform is receiving a most
unexpected kind of confirmation today ; all the attempts by the current leadership of the
VKP (b) to evade the consequences of the
1923-1928 policy are based on almost verbatim quotations
from the Platform, whose authors and supporters are scattered
in prisons and places of exile. The fact that the
current leaders resort to the Platform in fragments, without
any consistency in their actions, makes the new
leftward shift extremely unstable. But at the same time, it
enhances the Platform all the more, since it expresses Lenin's position as a whole.

As for the Chinese question, we are obliged to
subject it to a more careful analysis in a special chapter
(the third), given its decisive importance for the
Communist International and because, in the Platform, it is
presented in an insufficient, incomplete, and sometimes even
truly inaccurate light due to Zinoviev 146 •

As regards the Anglo-Russian committee, the third
most important issue in the strategic experience acquired by
the Comintern in recent years, after all that has been said
by the Opposition in a series of articles, speeches, theses, all that
remains for us is to draw up a short summary here.

The starting point of the Anglo-Russian committee was, as we
have already seen, an impatient desire to bypass the
fledgling Communist Party, which was developing too slowly. This
gave the whole experiment, even before the general strike, a
flawed character.

The Anglo-Russian Committee was not seen as a
temporary coalition at the top, destined to be broken
and spectacularly so at the first serious test, in order
to undermine the General Council ; no, it was viewed—and
not only by Stalin, Bukharin, Tomsky, etc., but also by
Zinoviev—as a long-term “friendly bloc,” an
instrument intended to systematically revolutionize the
English working masses ; this committee was seen, if not as the gateway, at
least as the threshold through which the revolution of the English proletariat would have to pass
. Increasingly, the Anglo-Russian Committee, which had been a
temporary alliance, was becoming an immutable entity, above
the class struggle. This was clearly seen during the
general strike.

The mass movement, openly entering a
revolutionary phase, cast into the camp of bourgeois reaction
the liberal labor politicians who had veered
slightly to the left. They knowingly and openly betrayed the
general strike ; then they sabotaged and betrayed the
miners' strike. Reformism always contains the potential for
betrayal. But this does not mean that reformism and
betrayal are synonymous at all times. There can be provisional agreements
with reformists when they take a step forward.

But when, frightened by the movement of the masses, they
betray it, maintaining the coalition with them amounts to tolerating
the traitors and concealing their treason, which is a crime.

The general strike aimed to exert, through the force
of five million workers, a united pressure against industry
and the state, the coal industry being the
most important issue in state policy. Through the
betrayal of management, the strike was sabotaged from the outset
. It was a huge illusion, after that, to believe that
the miners' economic strike, now alone and isolated,
would achieve what the general strike had failed to do. This was where
the power of the General Council lay. Through cold calculation, it
led the miners to defeat so that large segments
of the working class would be convinced that the directives of the Judases on the
General Council were "just" and "reasonable."

Maintaining the friendly coalition with him, and
simultaneously providing aid to the
isolated and prolonged economic strike of the miners, which the general council was fighting against,
seemed to be maneuvers calculated in advance to allow
the leaders of the trade unions to emerge with minimal
losses from these terrible ordeals.

From a revolutionary standpoint, the Russian trade unions played
a thoroughly negative and particularly pitiful role. It goes without saying
that the economic strike, even when isolated, needed support
: among revolutionaries, there can be no disagreement
on this point. But this support should not be merely
financial ; it should also be revolutionary and
political. The Russian trade unions should have openly declared to the
miners' federation and the
entire English working class that the miners' strike had no real chance of
success unless, through its obstinacy, tenacity, and
scope, it was prepared to pave the way for a new
explosion of the general strike. This could only be achieved by
directly and openly fighting the General Council,
an agency of the government and the coal industry bosses
. The struggle to transform the economic strike into a
political strike should have meant a furious political and
organizational war against the General Council ; The first step on this
path should have been the breakup of the Anglo-Russian committee, which had become a
reactionary obstacle, a millstone around our necks.

No revolutionary who weighs their words would claim
that victory was assured by marching in that direction. But
it was only possible to reach victory by following that path.
Any defeat would have been suffered on a road that could
later lead to victory. Such a defeat is instructive ; that is to say,
it strengthens revolutionary ideas within the working class.

On the contrary, by only financially supporting a
protracted, ultimately seemingly
pointless, corporate strike—corporatist in its methods, revolutionary and
political in its aims—they were merely playing into the
hands of the General Council, which was calmly waiting for the
strike to end through exhaustion to prove it was "right." It goes without
saying that it wasn't easy to wait several months while
openly protesting. It was precisely during this
critical period that the General Council needed political camouflage
in the eyes of the masses : this was the Anglo-Russian Committee. Thus,
the questions of a deadly class struggle between capital and the
English proletariat, between the General Council and the miners,
seemed to be transformed into issues for friendly discussion
between allies in the same coalition—the General Council and the
Russian trade union leadership—regarding the best course of action at the
present moment : that of agreement or that of
isolated economic struggle. The strike inevitably ended in an agreement,
that is to say, it tragically ended the friendly "discussion"
in favour of the General Council.

The entire policy of the Anglo-Russian Committee, due to its
misguided orientation, was, from beginning to end, one of support for the
General Council, of backing the General Council, of strengthening
the General Council. Even the fact that the strike was
financially sustained for a very long time thanks to the spirit of sacrifice of the
Russian workers served neither the miners nor the English Communist Party,
but always that same General Council. Following the greatest
revolutionary movement England had seen since
Chartism, the English Communist Party made little progress,
while the General Council was more firmly established than before
the general strike.

These are the results of this
unique “strategic maneuver”.

To explain the stubbornness shown in maintaining
the coalition with the General Council - which even went so far as to
grovel before it at the shameful Berlin conference in
April 1927 - recourse was made again and again to "stabilization".

If the revolution is slow in coming, we must cling even to
Purcell. This argument, which seems extraordinarily profound to
a Soviet official or a trade unionist of
Melnitchansky's type, is in reality a perfect example
of blind empiricism, further aggravated by scholasticism. What
does "stabilization" mean when applied to the English economy and politics , especially in 1926-1927 ? Development of the productive
forces ? Improvement of the economic situation ?

Increased hopes for the future ? Relative comfort and calm among the
working masses ? Absolutely not. The supposed stabilization
of British capitalism rests entirely on the
conservative strength of the old workers' organizations, in all
their tendencies and nuances, in the face of the weakness and indecisiveness of the
English Communist Party. Revolution is fully ripe
in terms of economic and social relations in England.

The question arises solely from a political standpoint. The
main foundations of stabilization are constituted by the
leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions, which, in England,
form a unified whole but practice the division of labor. Given
the mood of the working masses during the
general strike, the principal role in the mechanism of
capitalist stabilization was played, no longer by MacDonald and Thomas,
but by Pugh, Purcell, Cook, and company. They act, and Thomas
completes the process. Without Purcell, Thomas loses all support, and
Baldwin loses it along with Thomas.
Purcell's "leftism"—false, diplomatic, a masquerade, fraternizing alternately
or simultaneously with churchmen and
Bolsheviks, always ready not only to retreat
but also to betray—this constitutes the main obstacle
to revolution in England. Stabilization is Purcellism
. This reveals the theoretical absurdity of
blind opportunism when it justifies its
political bloc with Purcell through an illusory "stabilization." But to undermine this stabilization, it
was first necessary to dismantle Purcellism. Under these circumstances
, to maintain even
a semblance of solidarity with the General Council in the eyes of the working masses was the greatest
of crimes, the worst of shames.

Even the soundest strategy does not always lead to
victory. To determine if a strategic plan is sound, one must examine
whether it accurately follows the progression of class forces and
realistically assesses the elements of that progression.
The most painful, shameful, and disastrous defeat for
a movement—the typically Menshevik defeat—is
that which results from a flawed class analysis, an underestimation
of revolutionary factors, and an idealization of the
enemy's forces. Our defeats in China and England were
of this kind.

What was expected of the Anglo-Russian committee, for the USSR ?

In July 1926, Stalin taught us at the plenum of the
combined Central Committee and Central Control Commission :

"The task of this bloc—the Anglo-Russian committee—
is to organize a broad working-class movement
against new imperialist wars and, in
general, against any intervention against our country,
particularly from one of the strongest
imperialist powers in Europe, England."

And while teaching us, the opposition, that we must
have "the concern to defend the first workers' republic in the
world against intervention" - naturally we did
not know this - Stalin added :

"If the reactionary English trade unions are prepared to form a coalition
with the revolutionary trade unions of our country against the counter-revolutionary imperialists of theirs, why should we not approve of this bloc ?"

If "reactionary unions" were capable of fighting
against their imperialists, they would not be reactionary.

Stalin no longer distinguishes the dividing line between the
notions of reactionary and revolutionary. Out of habit, he
labels the trade unions of England as "reactionary," in
reality he harbors pitiful illusions about their "revolutionary spirit
. "

Following Stalin's example, the Moscow committee of our party
lectured the workers of our city :

"The Anglo-Russian Committee can and must play, and
undoubtedly will play, an enormous role in the struggle against
all kinds of interventions directed against the USSR. It is
becoming the organizing center of the international
proletarian forces, fighting against all kinds of attempts by
the international bourgeoisie to provoke a new
war." 152

What was the Opposition's response ?

"The more tense the international situation becomes, the more the
Anglo-Russian committee will transform into an instrument of
British and international imperialism."

At the same plenum, Stalin described this criticism of Stalinist hopes placed in
Purcell, considered the guardian angel of the workers' state, as a "transition from Leninism to Trotskyism".

"Voroshilov 153 : That's right.

One voice : Voroshilov has put his seal on it.

Trotsky : "Luckily, we'll find all of that in
the stenographic record."

Yes, all of this can be found in the stenographic record
of the July plenum where blind, rude and disloyal opportunists
had the audacity to accuse the Opposition of "defeatism
".

This dialogue, which I am obliged to quote from my earlier
article "What was expected and what was obtained ?", offers a
far richer lesson in strategy than the
seminar text on strategy found in the
"Draft Program." The question "What was expected and
what was obtained ?" is generally the principal criterion in matters of
strategy. At the Sixth Congress, it must be applied to all the questions
that have appeared on the agenda in recent years. It will
then become indisputably clear that the strategy of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International, especially from 1926 onward, is one of
imaginary quantities, false calculations, illusions about the enemy,
and the persecution of the purest and most steadfast militants—
in short, the strategy of rotten centrism.

9. On the Maneuvering Nature of Revolutionary Strategy

At first glance, it is impossible to understand why the
draft program completely ignores the problem
of maneuver and "flexibility" in Bolshevik strategy
. Of this entire vast issue, only one point is
examined : agreements with the native bourgeoisie of the colonies.
However, during the last period, opportunism,
which characterized increasingly marked zigzags to the right,
has primarily operated under the banner of
strategic maneuver. The refusal of any unprincipled compromise
was labeled a lack of "flexibility." The majority
proclaimed that its fundamental principle was maneuver.
Zinoviev, as early as 1925, maneuvered with Radié and LaFollette. Stalin
and Bukharin subsequently maneuvered with Chiang Kai-shek,
with Purcell, and with the kulaks. The apparatus has constantly maneuvered
with the party. Zinoviev and Kamenev are now maneuvering with
the apparatus.

In the daily routine of bureaucracy,
an entire corps of maneuver specialists has emerged, composed of men who
were never revolutionary militants and who
now bow before the revolution with all the more enthusiasm
after it has seized power. Borodin maneuvers in Canton,
Rafes in Beijing, D. Petrovsky around the English Channel, Pepper in the
United States, but it can also be done in Polynesia. Martynov
maneuvers remotely but can do so in any part of the
world. Entire teams of young academics
of maneuver have been trained, who, by Bolshevik flexibility, understand
the elasticity of their own spines. The task of this
strategic school is to obtain through maneuver everything that
can only be conquered by the revolutionary force of the class.
Just as every alchemist of the Middle Ages, despite the failures of
all the others, hoped to make gold, so too do
today's strategists of maneuver, each at their post, hope to deceive
history. It goes without saying that these are not strategists at heart, but
bureaucratic schemers of all sizes, except the large ones.

Some of them, having observed how the master
resolved minor issues, imagined they possessed
all the secrets of strategy. In essence, this is
the whole doctrine of the epigones. Others, having learned
secondhand or thirdhand the secrets of political maneuvering, having
convinced themselves in small matters that such maneuvers can work
great miracles, concluded that they were all the more suitable
for large-scale undertakings. However, all attempts
to apply the bureaucratic method of political maneuvering to the
resolution of major issues, under the pretext that it is incomparably
more "economical" than that of revolutionary struggle
, have inevitably led to shameful failures :
the doctrine of political maneuvering, applied by the party and
state apparatus, has broken the backs of young parties and young revolutions.
Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, Purcell, the kulak, all have
so far emerged victorious from all attempts to
reduce it by "maneuvers".

This does not mean that, in general, all maneuvers are
inadmissible, that is, incompatible with the revolutionary strategy
of the working class. But it is essential to understand the
auxiliary, subordinate value of maneuvers, to be used strictly
as means, in relation to the methods of
revolutionary struggle. It must be understood once and for all that a
maneuver can never decide a great cause. If
schemes seem to succeed advantageously in minor
matters, it is always at the expense of those that are important
. A just maneuver only helps the solution, either by
allowing time to be gained or by obtaining more with
less effort. But it is impossible to evade
fundamental difficulties through a maneuver.

The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is a
fundamental one. That is why trying to restrain the
Chinese bourgeoisie through personal
or organizational maneuvers, forcing them to submit to plans laid out
in schemes, is not a maneuver,
but a despicable act of self-deception, even if it
is a large-scale operation. You cannot deceive
classes. This is true for all classes if you consider
things from the broadest historical perspective, but it is
especially true for the ruling, propertied, exploiting, educated classes
. Their experience of the world is so vast,
their class instinct so well-honed, their means of espionage so
diverse, that by attempting to deceive them, by pretending to be something
you are not, you actually manage to lure not your
enemies but your friends into the trap.

The contradiction between the USSR and the capitalist world is
a fundamental one that cannot be evaded through
maneuvering. By making clear and openly stated concessions
to Capital, and by exploiting the contradictions between its
various sectors, one can prolong a pause, buy
time, under very specific conditions and not at any
time. To believe that it is possible to "neutralize" the
world bourgeoisie before building socialism—that is, to
escape, through a few maneuvers, the fundamental contradictions
— is to be gravely deluded, to risk the very head of the
Soviet Republic. Only international revolution can
free us from these fundamental contradictions.

A maneuver on our part may consist of either making a
concession to the enemy, concluding an agreement with a
provisional and always dubious ally, carrying out a timely and
calculated retreat so as not to allow the adversary to
crush us, or alternating
partial demands with slogans designed to provoke a split in the
opposing camp. These are the principal forms of maneuver.

We could cite others, which are secondary. But
every maneuver is by nature only a simple episode in relation
to the fundamental strategic line of the struggle. Now, in the
maneuvers around the Guomindang and the Anglo-Russian committee (we
must always keep them in mind as perfect examples
of Menshevik, not Bolshevik, maneuvers ), precisely
the opposite happened : what should have been only a
tactical episode swelled up to become the strategic line
(struggle against the bourgeoisie and the reformists), and was broken down into
a series of restricted and secondary tactical episodes, of a
mostly decorative nature.

When undertaking a maneuver, one must always start from
the least favorable hypothesis, both with regard to
the enemy to whom concessions are being made and the unreliable ally with
whom an agreement is being concluded. One must never forget that an ally can
become an enemy the very next day. This is true even for an
ally like the peasantry.

“Be wary of the peasantry, organize independently
of it, be ready to fight against it insofar
as it intervenes from a reactionary or
counter-revolutionary position.” 155

This is in no way in contradiction with the great
strategic task of the proletariat which Lenin, first of all, studied in
theory and carried out in depth with such brilliant profundity -
to wrest the lower strata of the exploited peasants from
the influence of the bourgeoisie and draw them up with the proletariat.

But history does not present the alliance of the proletariat and the
peasantry in a fully formed form ; it cannot be created through
sweet maneuvers, trivial coquetry, or pathetic
declarations. The alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry
is a matter of the balance of political power and
therefore requires the independence of the proletariat from all
classes. An ally must first be educated. This can be achieved by
first demonstrating profound attention to all its
historical and progressive needs, and then by systematically distrusting it
, by waging a tireless and implacable struggle against all its
anti-proletarian tendencies.

The meaning and limits of the maneuver must always be
carefully considered and emphasized. A concession must be called
a concession, and a retreat a retreat. It is far less
dangerous to exaggerate the concessions and retreats one
is forced to make than to underestimate them.
Class vigilance and systematic distrust of one's own side must be maintained, not
lulled into complacency.

The essential instrument of any maneuver, as indeed
of any historical action by the working class, is the party. But it
is not simply a docile instrument in the hands of the
"masters" of the maneuver. It is a conscious tool, acting
on its own. Generally speaking, it is the supreme expression of
the proletariat's own action. Every maneuver must therefore be
thoroughly understood by the party in the course of its planning and
execution. This is obviously not a matter of diplomatic
, military, or conspiratorial secrets—that is, the techniques of the
struggle of the proletarian state or the proletarian party under
capitalism. It concerns the political substance of the maneuver. The
explanations whispered to claim that the course of 1924–1928
was a grand maneuver with the kulak are therefore absurd
and criminal. You cannot fool the kulak. He judges not by
words, but by deeds, taxes, prices ; he calculates in terms of
money. But the working class, even his own party, can be
deceived. Nothing erodes the revolutionary spirit
of the proletarian party so profoundly as unprincipled schemes
and maneuvers carried out behind its back.

The most important, unshakeable, and invariable rule to
apply in any maneuver is this : never allow yourself
to merge, confuse, or intertwine your
party organization with that of another, however "friendly" it may be at the
moment. Never allow yourself any actions that, directly
or indirectly, openly or secretly, subordinate your
party to other parties or to the organizations of other classes, that
reduce your freedom of action, or that make you, even partially
, responsible for the political line of another party. Never
allow yourself to confuse your flag with theirs, and, all the
more so, it goes without saying, to kneel before the
flag of others.

The worst and most dangerous maneuver is that which
is driven by opportunistic impatience and the desire to preempt the
development of one's own party, to skip over the
inevitable stages of its development—precisely the case
where skipping stages is not an option—and which is executed
by superficially, hypocritically, diplomatically, schemingly
, and fraudulently linking organizations and elements that are pulling in
different directions. Such experiments, always dangerous, are
fatal to young and weak parties.

In both maneuvering and battle, it is not
strategic wisdom – and even less so the cunning of combinations – that matters.
The outcome is determined by the balance of power. Generally speaking
, a maneuver, even a well-executed one, poses
a greater danger to a revolutionary party the
younger and weaker it is compared to its enemies, allies, or semi-allies.
This is why—and here we come to the most important point
for the Communist International—the Bolshevik party, far from
beginning with maneuvers, which it did not consider
panaceas, only resorted to them when it was large enough to
carry them out because it had by then sunk its roots deep
into the working class, had strengthened itself, and had reached the political maturity
of its ideas.

The real problem lies in the fact that the epigones of Bolshevik strategy
present young communist parties with maneuverability
and flexibility as the very essence of this
strategy, thereby severing them from their historical roots and
fundamental principles, and creating combinations that
too often resemble a squirrel running in its wheel. It was
not flexibility that constituted—and indeed,
it must not constitute now either—the fundamental characteristic of
Bolshevism, but its unwavering resolve. It was precisely this
quality, which it possessed and which its enemies and adversaries
criticized, that Bolshevism was rightly proud of. Not
naive “optimism,” but intransigence, vigilance, revolutionary defiance
, and a struggle for every inch of independence :
these are the essential traits of Bolshevism. This is where
the communist parties of both East and West must begin. They
still have to win the right to large-scale maneuvers, by
first preparing the material and political possibility of their
realization, namely the strength, solidity and severity in the choice
of means used by their own organization.

The Menshevik maneuvers carried out around the Guomindang
and the General Council are ten times criminal because they
fell upon the still fragile shoulders of the communists
in China and England. They not only led to the
defeat of the revolution and the working class, but they
crushed, weakened, and undermined the essential instrument of future struggle : the
young communist parties. At the same time, they introduced
elements of demoralization into the oldest party of
the Communist International : the Communist Party of the USSR
(Bolshevik).

The chapter of the draft program that deals with strategy is completely
silent on the subject of maneuvering, that is, the hobbyhorse
that has been so enthusiastically pursued in recent
years. Some lenient critics might say that this silence is already
a good thing. But it would be a grave mistake to
reason in this way. As we have already shown through a series
of examples, and as we will soon demonstrate, the draft
program itself unfortunately has a
maneuvering character, in the pejorative sense of the term, that is to say, in the
scheming sense. The draft engages in maneuvering around
the party. It camouflages some of its weaknesses "behind
Lenin" and remains silent on the others. In this way, it
sidesteps the question of the strategy of maneuvering. It is
currently impossible to address this subject without mentioning the
recent experiences of China and England. The mere mention
of the spirit of maneuvering evokes the images of Chiang Kai-shek
and Purcell. That's what the authors don't want. They
prefer to remain silent on their favorite topic and leave
the IC leadership free to act. But that's intolerable. The hands
of those involved in the schemes and those who would attempt them must be tied. That's what the
program is meant to do. Otherwise, it's pointless.

The chapter on strategy must lay out the
fundamental rules that define and delimit maneuver, that is,
the auxiliary method employed against the class enemy in
the revolutionary struggle, which can only be a fight to the death. The rules outlined above, based on the teachings of Marx and Lenin,
can be formulated more concisely and precisely. But they must absolutely be included in the program of the Communist International.

10. The strategy of civil war

The draft program quickly glosses over the issue of
the insurrection :

"This struggle is subject to the rules of the art of
war : it presupposes a military plan, the
offensive nature of combat operations, the unreserved devotion
and heroism of the proletariat."

Here the project is limited to repeating and summarizing some of
Marx's observations. Yet we have, on the one hand, the experience
of the October Revolution and, on the other, that of the defeats
of the Hungarian and Bavarian revolutions, the struggle in Italy in
1920, the insurrection in Bulgaria in September 1923, the
1923 movement in Germany, the 1924 movement in Estonia, the
English general strike in 1926, the Vienna workers' uprising
in 1927, and the second Chinese revolution of 1925-1927.
The Comintern's program must characterize, in an
equally concrete and precise way, the social and political prerequisites for
the insurrection as well as the strategic and military conditions and methods
necessary to ensure its success. Nothing denounces
the superficial and literary nature of the document better than the fact that the
chapter devoted to revolutionary strategy mentions Comelissen
and certain guildists (Orage, Hobson, GDH Cole) 156 by
designating them all by name, but does not give a
general characterization of the strategy of the proletariat in the imperialist era
and does not define the methods of struggle for the
conquest of power on the basis of
living historical references.

In 1924, after Germany's tragic experience, we
again raised the issue, requesting that the Comintern
put on its agenda and examine the problems of strategy
and tactics of insurrection and civil war in general.

“It must be acknowledged that the question of the timing of
the insurrection is considered unimportant by
many Western communists who have
still not rid themselves of their fatalistic and passive approach
to the main problems of revolution. Rosa
Luxemburg remains the most representative and
talented example of this. Psychologically, this is easily understood
. She had, so to speak, been forged in the struggle against
the bureaucratic apparatus of German social democracy and trade
unions. Tirelessly, she had demonstrated
that this apparatus stifled the initiative of the proletariat. She
saw salvation and a way out only in an irresistible surge of the
masses sweeping away all the barriers and defenses erected by
the social-democratic bureaucracy. The revolutionary general strike,
overflowing all the banks of bourgeois society,
had become synonymous for Rosa Luxemburg with the
proletarian revolution. However, however
powerful it may be, the general strike does not solve the problem of
power ; it merely poses it.” To seize
power, it was necessary, by leveraging the general strike,
to organize an insurrection. Rosa Luxemburg's entire evolution
suggests that she would have eventually admitted this. But
when she left the political scene, she hadn't yet had her
last word, nor her penultimate one. However,
a very strong current toward
revolutionary fatalism still existed within the KPD until recently. The revolution is approaching,
they said ; it will bring the insurrection and give us
power. As for the party, its role at this time is to
stir up revolutionary agitation and await its
effects. Under such conditions, to raise the
question of insurrection outright is to wrench the party from
passivity and fatalism ; it is to confront it with the main
problems of the revolution, in particular the conscious organization
of the insurrection to drive the enemy from
power.

We devote considerable time and effort in
the theoretical field to the Paris Commune of 1871, and
we completely disregard the struggle of the
German proletariat, which had already acquired valuable experience in
civil war ; for example, we pay almost
no attention to the experience of the Bulgarian uprising
last September, and finally, most astonishingly,
we have essentially relegated the
October experience to the archives. [...]

The experience of the October Revolution, the only proletarian revolution to date that has triumphed, must be studied in the most meticulous way . A strategic and tactical calendar of October
must be established . It must be shown how events grew wave by wave, and what repercussions they had within the party, the soviets, the central committee, and the military organization.

What was the significance of the hesitations manifesting themselves
within the party ? What was their
relative importance in the overall scope of events ? What
was the role of the military organization ? This is a task
of inestimable importance. It would be a true
crime to postpone it. [...]

What, then, does this task consist of ? It involves composing
a universal formulary, or a guide, a manual, or even
a set of instructions concerning matters of civil war
and, therefore, first and foremost, armed insurrection, the
pivotal moment of the revolution. We must take stock of
acquired experience, analyze the context, study errors, highlight
the most judicious operations, and draw the
necessary conclusions. Will we thus enrich science—
that is, the knowledge of the laws of
historical development—or art—as the set of rules of action
deduced from experience ? I believe both will
benefit. But our goal is strictly practical ; it
is to enrich the art of revolutionary warfare.

Necessarily, an instruction of this kind will have a
very complex structure. First and foremost, it is necessary to present the
characteristic features of the fundamental prerequisites for
the proletariat's conquest of power. We are
still in the realm of revolutionary politics :
insurrection is indeed the continuation of politics, but
by other means. The analysis of the prerequisites for insurrection
must take into account the various types of countries. There are
some where the population is predominantly proletarian and
others where the proletariat is an insignificant minority and
the peasantry has absolute dominance. Between these
two poles lie countries of an intermediate type. It
would therefore be necessary to posit at least three "types" of country at the basis of such a study
: industrial, agrarian, and intermediate
. The introduction (which deals with the preconditions
for revolution) must precisely characterize the
particularities of each of these types considered from the perspective
of civil war. We consider the insurrection from a
dual point of view : on the one hand, as a well
– defined stage in the historical process, as a
specific refraction of the objective laws of class struggle ; on
the other hand, from a subjective or active point of view : how
to prepare and carry out the insurrection to ensure victory
with the greatest possible certainty ? 157

In 1924, a large group of people gathered around the
Society of Military Sciences undertook a collective effort
to develop guidelines for civil war, namely a
Marxist guide to the problems of direct class conflict and
armed struggle for dictatorship. This work, however,
very quickly encountered resistance from the Comintern—an integral part of the
general system of the struggle against so-called Trotskyism—and
was subsequently completely halted. It would be difficult to
conceive of a more frivolous and criminal undertaking. In times
of abrupt upheaval, the rules of civil war, understood
in the sense explained above, must be part of the standard
knowledge base of every revolutionary cadre, and, needless to say, of
party leaders. All must constantly study and
supplement these statutes, and each must compare them with recent experience
gained in their own country. It is only through a
study of this kind that one can obtain a certain guarantee,
both against movements of panic and capitulation,
in moments which require courage and great
resolve, and against the capers of adventurers in
periods which require prudence and circumspection.

If such rules were contained in the books that a communist
must study seriously, just as he must know the
fundamental ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, defeats
like those that have occurred in recent years,
which were by no means inevitable—especially the Canton coup
, carried out with childish recklessness—would
not have happened. The "Draft Program" addresses these
issues in a few lines, with almost as much parsimony
as Gandhism in India. It goes without saying that a program cannot
go into detail. But it must state the problem
clearly, present its fundamental elements, and
refer to the most important successes and errors.
In addition to this task, in our opinion, the Fifth Congress
should, in a special resolution, instruct the Executive Committee
to formulate rules of civil war, in the form of guidelines,
based on past experience of victories and defeats.

11. Problems with the party's internal system

The organizational problems of Bolshevism are inextricably
linked to those of program and tactics. The plan
only touches upon this subject in passing, expressing the necessity of "the
strictest revolutionary order within democratic centralism
." This is the only formula that defines the internal regime
of the party, and moreover, it is entirely new. We knew that
the regime was based on the principles of democratic centralism
. It theoretically guaranteed the party—and indeed, it did
so in practice—the complete possibility of debating,
criticizing, expressing discontent, electing, and dismissing members,
while at the same time ensuring ironclad discipline in
action directed by elected and recallable leadership bodies. If
by democracy we understand the sovereignty of the party over all its
organs, centralism corresponds to a conscious,
judiciously established discipline, guaranteeing the party's combativeness.

Now, above this formula for the internal regime,
justified by all of history, an addition : “The
strictest revolutionary order.” Thus, the party needs not only
democratic centralism but also a certain revolutionary order
within it. This formulation attributes to the new idea an
intrinsic value and places it above democratic centralism,
that is, above the party.

What then does this revolutionary order – and “the
strictest” – mean, dominating democracy and centralism ? It corresponds to
a party apparatus, independent or tending to be independent
of the party, to a bureaucracy finding its end in its own
existence, which watches over “order” without taking care of the mass of the
party, which abolishes the will of the party and undermines it if
“order” requires it, which tramples on the statutes, postpones
congresses, and makes them into fictions.

For a long time, and by various means, the thinking of
the apparatus has been oriented toward this formula of the “revolutionary order
.” In the last two years, we have seen
the most responsible representatives of the party leadership
offer many new definitions of democracy within the
party, which essentially boil down to saying that democracy and
centralism simply mean submission to the
higher hierarchical bodies. All practice has developed strongly
in this direction. But centralism with a strangled and
empty democracy is bureaucratic centralism. An “order” of this kind
is obviously obliged to conceal itself behind the forms and
rituals of democracy ; it lashes it out with countless circulars
from above, orders it to engage in self-criticism under the threat of Article
58 (158), and demonstrates that the attacks on democracy
emanate not from the central leadership, but from the so-called “executors
.” But it is impossible to demand anything from them for
the simple reason that each "executor" happens to be the
leader of all those who are his subordinates ?

Thus, the new formula, utterly inconsistent from a
theoretical standpoint, demonstrates by its novelty and incoherence
that its function is to satisfy certain aspirations that were already
ripe. It enshrines the bureaucratic apparatus that engendered it.

This question is inextricably linked to that of factions
and groups. When a problem is open to discussion,
when there is a divergence of views, the leadership and the official press,
not only of the VKP (b), but also of the Comintern and all its
sections, immediately divert the debate to the
issue of factions and groups. The life of ideas within
the party cannot be conceived without provisional groupings on the
ideological front.

Naturally, groupings are an "evil," just as much as
divergences. But this evil constitutes a component
of the dialectic of the party's evolution as necessary as toxins
are to the life of the human organism.

The transformation of groups into organized
and, above all, self-contained factions is an even greater evil.
The art of leading the party consists precisely in preventing this
transformation.

At the Tenth Congress, as the
Kronstadt rebellion and the kulak uprisings raged, Lenin had a
resolution adopted that banned factions and groups.
By groups, he meant not the ephemeral tendencies that inevitably form
during the life of the party, but those
same factions masquerading as groups. The
party mass clearly understood the mortal danger of the moment :
it supported its leader by adopting a resolution that was harsh and implacable
in its form : the banning of factions and groups.
But the party knew full well that it was the Central Committee, headed by
Lenin, that would have to interpret this formula, that there would be no
brutal and disloyal interpretation, and even less so, no abuse
of power (see on this subject Lenin's Testament). The party
knew that a year later, or even a month later, if a third of the party so
requested, at the next congress, the party would review the experience
gained and make the necessary corrections. The decision
of the Tenth Congress was a decisive measure, due to the
critical situation of the governing party as it made a
dangerous turn from War Communism to the NEP. This
decisive measure was fully justified in due course, as it
merely complemented a just and insightful policy that
removed any solid foundation from the groups formed before the
transition to the NEP. 161

But the resolution of the 10th Congress on factions and groups, which already required judicious
interpretation and application , by no means constitutes an absolute principle that would dominate all other needs of party development, regardless of country, situation and time .

After Lenin's death, the party leadership,
formally relying on the Tenth Congress resolution on
factions and groups to defend itself against all
criticism, increasingly stifled party democracy and
, at the same time, increasingly lost sight of its immediate goal :
the suppression of factionalism. The task is not, in fact,
to prohibit factions, but rather to ensure their
complete disappearance. Yet, factionalism has never before
ravaged the party so much, fragmented its unity so profoundly, as since
Lenin left the helm. Never before has there been such a pervasive
, false monolithism, beyond this fragmentation,
which merely serves to camouflage the methods used to stifle
party life.

The faction of the apparatus that conceals itself from the party's view
was formed within the PC (b) even before the 12th Congress.
Subsequently, it adopted a carbonari-like organizational structure
, with its illegal central committee (the "gang of seven"),
its circulars, its agents, its coded language, etc. The
party apparatus selected from within itself a closed and
uncontrollable order, possessing the exceptional resources of the apparatus
, not only of the party but also of the State, transforming
a mass party into an instrument of camouflage and making
it a subordinate tool, used in the maneuvers of schemers
.

But the more this closed-off faction of the apparatus
resolutely escapes the control of the party's mass—a mass increasingly
diluted by all sorts of "levies" and "promotions
"164—the more the process of fragmentation into factions
becomes, not only at the base but also within the apparatus itself
. Given the
apparatus's complete and unlimited domination over the party, already established at the time of the 13th
Congress, the divergences that appear within the apparatus itself
find no resolution : calling on the party to provide the
true solution would again be to subordinate the apparatus to it
, to settle the dispute by resorting to the methods of
the apparatus's democracy, that is, by questioning the
members of the secret faction : only the group that is
certain in advance of having a majority within the apparatus is inclined to
adopt this solution. As a corollary,
new factions sometimes form within the dominant faction of
the apparatus, striving not so much to obtain a majority
within the common faction, but rather to find footholds
within the institutions of the state apparatus. A majority at the
party congress is automatically secured since
the congress can be convened at the most opportune moment and
prepared as desired. This is how
the apparatus usurps power, which constitutes the most
terrible danger for both the party and the dictatorship
of the proletariat.

After the first “anti-Trotskyist” campaign of
1923–1924 had been carried out to its conclusion by means of the factions and
the apparatus, a deep rift appeared in the
secret faction led by the “Gang of Seven.” The fundamental cause
lay in the class discontent of the proletarian vanguard
in Leningrad with the drift that was beginning
to manifest itself both with regard to the problems of the country's internal life
and to international issues. The
advanced workers of Leningrad continued in 1925 the work
begun by the vanguard proletarians of Moscow in
1923 (165). But these deep class tendencies could not be
openly manifested in the party : they were reflected only
in the muted struggle that took place within the
apparatus faction (166).

In April 1925, the Central Committee circulated a circular throughout the party
refuting rumors allegedly spread
by the "Trotskyists" (!!) claiming that there were, within the core
of the "Leninists"—the "Gang of Seven"—certain differences
of opinion regarding the peasantry. It was only through this circular
that more party cadres learned of the actual existence
of such differences, which in no way prevented them from
continuing to deceive the party by asserting that the Opposition was
undermining the monolithic nature of "Lenin's Guard." This
propaganda was in full swing when the 14th Congress brought upon the party the existing , formless and confused, but profound, class-based
disputes between the two sections of the ruling faction. The Moscow and Leningrad organizations—that is, the main strongholds of the party—adopted diametrically opposed resolutions at their conferences on the eve of the congress . Both cities obviously did so unanimously. Moscow explained this miracle of " revolutionary order" by the oppression exerted in Leningrad by the party apparatus, while the latter turned the accusation back on Moscow. As if there had been a watertight barrier between the organizations of these two cities ! In both cases, the apparatus decided, demonstrating by its 100% monolithic nature that the party was absent when the fundamental questions of its own existence were being decided. The 14th Congress was therefore forced to provide a solution to the new divergences arising from essential problems and to reorganize the leadership behind the back of the party, which had not been consulted. The congress had no choice but to immediately entrust the task of finding this solution to a carefully selected hierarchy of party secretaries. The 14th Congress marked a new milestone in the dismantling of party democracy through the methods of "order," that is, the whims of the hidden faction within the party apparatus. The next stage has recently unfolded . The art of the ruling faction lies in consistently presenting the party with a resolution that has already been adopted, a

an irreparable situation, a fait accompli.

However, this new, higher phase of “
revolutionary order” by no means signified the liquidation of factions
and groups. On the contrary, they developed
extraordinarily, their relations worsened, both
within the party ranks and within the apparatus itself. As far as
the party was concerned, the bureaucratic punishment inflicted on the groups
became increasingly severe and, as a sign of impotence
, it even stooped to the infamy of the
Wrangel officer affair and Article 58. Simultaneously, the
process of further fragmentation of the ruling faction itself
continued and is still developing today.
Certainly, there is no shortage today either of false displays
of monolithism and circulars testifying to the
complete unanimity of the leading circles. In reality, the silent,
fierce, because inescapable struggle which was taking place in the
closed apparatus of the factions, has taken on, judging by all the symptoms, an
extremely tense character and is leading the party towards some unknown
new explosion.

Such is the theory and practice of the "revolutionary order
" which inevitably transforms into the theory and practice
of usurpation.

For a long time, however, these matters have not been confined to
the Soviet Union. In 1923, the campaign against factionalism
rested primarily on the argument that
factions are embryonic parties. Now, in a country where the
peasantry holds an overwhelming majority and is surrounded by
capitalists, the dictatorship of the proletariat does not allow for the freedom of
parties.¹⁶⁸ This thesis is perfectly correct in itself. But it
also requires a just policy and an appropriate regime. It is clear,
however, that by posing the question in this way,
the resolutions of the Tenth Congress of the CPSU(b), the governing party, were being foregone conclusion as to their
application to the CPSUs of bourgeois states. But the bureaucratic regime has its
own self-destructive logic. If it does not allow bureaucratic control
in the Soviet party, it tolerates it no
more in the Comintern, which, formally speaking, dominates the CPSU
(b). That is why the leadership transformed
its brutal and disloyal interpretation and application
of the resolution of the 10th Congress, which corresponded to the
precisely determined conditions of the USSR at the time in question, into a universal principle :
it extended it to all organizations on the globe.

Bolshevism has always been strong because it was
historically concrete in developing its forms of organization
. No arid blueprints. By moving from one stage to the next,
the Bolsheviks radically altered the structure of their
organization. Yet now, the same principle of
"revolutionary order" is being applied simultaneously to the powerful party
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the KPD, which constitutes a
serious political force, to the Chinese party, which has suddenly been swept up
in the whirlwind of revolutionary struggle, and to the small
propaganda group that is the party in the United States. The mere
occurrence of doubts within the latter regarding the correctness of the
methods imposed by the current Pepper is enough to
unleash punishments upon those skeptics deemed factional. A
young party, which is a completely embryonic political organism
, without any real connection with the masses, without experience in
revolutionary leadership, without theoretical training, is already
entirely adorned with all the attributes of the "revolutionary order
" which fit it like a father's armor on his six-year-old son.

The Communist Party of the USSR possesses a
wealth of revolutionary experience in the realm of ideas. But, as
recent years have shown, it too cannot live
a single day with impunity by merely consuming the interest
on its capital : it must constantly replenish and increase it
. This is only possible through the collective theoretical work of the
party. What then can be said of foreign Communist Parties, born only a few years ago
, which are still merely going through their
initial phase of accumulating theoretical knowledge and
methods of action ? Without genuine freedom in party life,
without freedom of discussion, without freedom to collectively develop,
including within groups, the path forward, these parties
will never become a decisive revolutionary force.

Before the Tenth Congress, where the ban on factions was decided
, the Communist Party of the USSR had lived for two decades
without such a prohibition. It was precisely these two
decades that shaped it so that, faced with a
most difficult reversal, it was able to accept and endure the
severe resolutions of the Tenth Congress. Western communist parties, however,
begin directly with this.

Lenin, and we with him, feared above all that the
Russian Communist Party, possessing powerful state resources,
would exert an excessive, overwhelming influence on the fledgling
Western parties that had just organized themselves. Lenin tirelessly
warned against a premature increase in centralism
, against exaggerated gestures by the Executive Committee and its
Presidium in this direction, and especially against forms and methods
of assistance that would devolve into a simple
power grab, admitting no appeals.

The break occurred in 1924 under the name of
"Bolshevization." If by Bolshevization we mean the purging
of the party through the elimination of foreign elements and habits
— that of clinging Social Democratic officials
, Freemasons, pacifist democrats,
spiritualist Confusionists, and so on—then this task was carried out
from the very first day of the Communist International's existence :
at the Fourth Congress, it took on particularly active forms with
regard to the French Communist Party. But this
true Bolshevization was once inextricably linked to the
specific experience of the Comintern's national sections and spread from
that experience : its touchstone was the question
of national politics, which rose to become
international problems. The "Bolshevization" of 1924 was
merely a caricature. The revolver was put to the temple of the
leading organizations of the communist parties, demanding that,
without information or debate, they take a position immediately and
definitively on the disagreements within the Communist Party of
the USSR. They knew in advance that, depending on the position they
took, they would either remain in the Comintern or be expelled.

In 1924, however, the European PCs were not sufficiently
equipped to resolve as quickly the problems posed in the Russian discussion where, in the new stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat, two principled tendencies
were barely emerging .

Naturally, after 1924, the work of purging continued,
and in many sections,
foreign elements were rightly eliminated. But, considered as a
whole, "Bolshevization" consisted of systematically disorganizing
the emerging leaderships in the Western Communist Parties
by exploiting the disputes between Russians, which
the state apparatus hammered into place. All of this was
disguised under the banner of combating factionalism.

If factions were to crystallize within the proletarian vanguard party, threatening to render it permanently
incapable of fighting, the party would clearly be
faced with a difficult decision : should it allow
time for further verification,
or should it immediately acknowledge that a split is
inevitable ? A fighting party cannot be a collection of
factions pulling in different directions. This is an undeniable truth
in its general form. But using splitting as a
preventative measure against disagreements, cutting off any group or
faction that voices criticism, amounts to
transforming the party's internal life into a series
of failed attempts. Such methods, far from contributing to the
perpetuation and development of the species, only exhaust
the generating organism, namely the party. The struggle against the spirit
of factionalism becomes more dangerous than that spirit itself.

In the present situation, all the pioneers and founders
of almost all the communist parties in the world are excluded from
the International, not to mention its former president. 169 • In
almost all parties, the groups which have guided its development
for two consecutive periods are excluded or sidelined.

In Germany, the Brandler group now only has one
foot in the party ; the Maslow group is on the other side of the threshold.
In France, the former groups of Rosmer-Monatte, Loriot,
and Souvarine 170 are excluded ; the same is true for the
Girault-Treint group, which was in the leadership during the following period.
In Belgium, the essential group of van Overstraeten 171 has been excluded
. If the Bordiga group 172, which gave rise to the
Italian Communist Party, is only half excluded, this is explained by the conditions
of the Fascist regime. In Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Norway,
the United States—in short, in almost every party in the world—
events of roughly the same order have occurred
since Lenin's death 173.

It is undeniable that many of those expelled had committed
enormous errors : we were among the first to point this out.
Nor can it be denied that many of those expelled, after being
removed from the Comintern, largely returned to
their original positions, to left-wing social democracy or to
trade unionism. But the task of the Comintern leadership is by no means
to automatically drive the young leaders of national parties into a dead end
and thus condemn some of their
representatives to ideological degeneration. The "revolutionary order
" of the bureaucratic leadership has become a
formidable obstacle to the development of all the parties
of the International.

Organizational questions are inseparable from those of
program and tactics. It is crucial to understand that one of
the most significant sources of opportunism within the Comintern is the
bureaucratic nature of its apparatus and its
ruling party. After the experience of 1923-1928, no one
can deny that in the Soviet Union, the bureaucracy is both
the expression and the instrument of the pressure exerted by non-
proletarian classes on the proletariat. In this regard, the
Communist International's "Draft Program"
aptly states that bureaucratic depravities
"inevitably arise from a lack of
mass education and class influences foreign to the proletariat."

This is the key to understanding not
only bureaucracy in general, but its extraordinary
growth over the past five years. The level of
education among the masses, while still insufficient, has
undoubtedly increased during this period. Therefore,
the cause of the bureaucracy's expansion can only be found in
the growing influence of class forces external to the proletariat.

The Communist Parties of Europe, that is to say essentially their
leadership cores, are aligning their organizations with the movements and
regroupings taking place within the Communist Party of the USSR.

Thus, the bureaucracy of foreign Communist Parties is to a large
extent merely a reflection and complement of that of the Communist Party of the
USSR.

The selection of leaders of foreign Communist Parties was, and
still is, based on their ability to accept and approve
the most recent grouping within the apparatus of the Communist Party of the USSR.

Those who had the most independence and sense of responsibility
, those who did not accept to submit to
changes made in a strictly administrative way, were
excluded from the party or forced to join the right - often
so-called right - or else joined the Left Opposition.

Thus, the organic process of selection, which allows for
the cohesion of revolutionary cadres based on the
proletarian struggle, is interrupted, modified, and distorted under the direction
of the Communist International, and sometimes directly replaced
by an administrative and bureaucratic sorting from above. It is no surprise
that the communist leaders most willing to accept
pre-determined decisions and sign any resolution
have frequently prevailed over those more
party-minded and more imbued with a sense of revolutionary responsibility
. Most often, instead of choosing stoic and rigorous revolutionaries, those who, as good bureaucrats, knew how to adapt
were selected .

All problems of domestic and international politics
invariably lead us back to questions of the
Party's internal regime. It goes without saying that the deviations that have led us
away from the class line in matters of the
Chinese revolution, the British labor movement, the Soviet economy
, wages, taxes, and so on, constitute in themselves
a most serious danger. But this danger is compounded tenfold
by the impossibility for the Party, bound hand and foot by the
bureaucratic regime, to correct,
through normal channels, the line decided at the top. The
same can be said of the Communist International. The resolution of the
14th Congress of the CPSU on the need for a
more democratic and collective leadership of the
Communist International has been transformed in practice into its opposite.
Changing the internal regime of the Communist International
is becoming a matter of life or death for the
international revolutionary movement. This change can be achieved
in two ways : either in parallel with a change in the
internal regime of the CPSU, or by fighting against the
leading role of the CPSU in the Comintern. We must
exert all our strength to make the first path prevail. The
struggle for a change in the regime of the CPSU is
a struggle for the reform of the regime of the Communist International
; it also aims to safeguard our
ideas in the leadership of our party.

The very idea that living, active parties could be subordinated to the
control of the "revolutionary order" of an immovable party and state bureaucracy must therefore be ruthlessly expelled from the program
. The party itself must be restored to its
rightful place. The party must once again become a party. This must
be affirmed in the program in a way that leaves no
room for any theoretical justification of the bureaucracy and its
usurping tendencies.

12. The causes of the Opposition's defeats and the outlook

From the autumn of 1923 onward, the proletarian left wing of the
party, which had set forth its views in a series of documents,
the principal one being the Platform of the Bolshevik-Leninists
(Opposition), was systematically destroyed as an organization
. The methods of repression were determined by the
nature of the party's internal regime, which became increasingly bureaucratic
as pressure from the
non-proletarian classes against the proletariat intensified. The general character
of the period allowed these methods to succeed :
it was a time when the proletariat was suffering serious defeats and
social democracy was being revived, while within the
communist parties centrist and opportunist tendencies were strengthening
, whereas, until the very last months, centrism
had been systematically shifting to the right. The first repression
against the Opposition was carried out immediately after the defeat
of the German revolution, of which it was in some ways a
complement. It would have been impossible if the German proletariat
had triumphed, and thus extraordinarily strengthened the
class confidence of the proletariat of the USSR and consequently
its capacity to resist the pressure of the bourgeois classes
both inside and outside the country and the party bureaucracy
which is their transmission belt.

To shed light on the general meaning of the regroupings that took
place within the Communist International since the end of 1923, it
would be of paramount importance to examine how the
leading group, at the various stages of its shift, explained its
victories of "organization" over the Opposition. It is not
possible for us to undertake this task within the framework of a critique of the draft
program. However, to achieve our goal, it will suffice
to examine how the first "victory" won against the Opposition in September 1924 was understood
, according to the article in which
Stalin made his debut in the field of
international politics :

"The decisive victory won by the revolutionary wing in the communist parties must be considered the
surest symptom," wrote Stalin, "of the
very important revolutionary processes taking place deep within
the working class."

And further on in the same article :

"If we add to this the total isolation of the
opportunist tendency within the Russian Communist Party, the picture obtained will be
completely finished. The Fifth Congress of the Comintern only served to
consolidate the victory of the revolutionary wing in the
fundamental sections of the Comintern."

Thus, the defeat of the Russian Communist Party's opposition was
presented as the result of the proletariat moving
to the left, directly to revolution, and, in all
sections, gaining the upper hand over the right. Now, five years
after the greatest defeat of the international proletariat in
the autumn of 1923, Pravda is forced to acknowledge that
only now is it beginning to "rise from the trough
of the wave, the apathy and depression that began after the
defeat of 1923 and enabled German capitalism to
strengthen its position." 17

But then a question arises, which is new for the
current leaders of the Comintern, if not for us : must
the failure of the Opposition in 1923 and in the
following years be explained by a shift of the working class to the right
and not to the left ? The answer to this question decides
everything.

The one given at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern and later
in speeches and articles was clear and categorical : it was
the strengthening of the revolutionary elements of the
workers' movement in Europe, the new rising tide, the approach of the
proletarian revolution, that caused the "debacle" of the
Left Opposition.

But today, the lasting, brutal political split that
occurred to the right in 1923, and not to the left, is an
established, universally accepted, and undeniable fact. Consequently, it is clear
that the unleashing of the struggle against the Opposition and its
intensification, with expulsions and deportations, is intimately
linked to the political process of stabilizing the bourgeoisie. It is
true that this process was interrupted during the
last four years by significant revolutionary events.

But further errors by the leadership, even more egregious
than those of 1923 in Germany, each time handed victory to
the enemy under the worst possible conditions for the proletariat and the
Communist Party, thus creating new factors for
bourgeois consolidation. The international revolutionary movement suffered
defeats, and with it the proletarian left wing of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) and the Communist International suffered
setbacks.

The explanation would be incomplete if we did not add the
internal processes of the economy and politics of the USSR
which, starting from the NEP, worsened because the leadership did
not understand the problems of the "smytchka" between towns and
countryside, the imbalance of industrialization and the importance
of its approach on the basis of a planned economy, etc.

The increasing economic and political pressure exerted by
petty-bourgeois and bureaucratic circles within the country, against the backdrop
of defeats for the proletarian revolution in Europe and Asia,
is the historical chain of events that, over these four years,
has tightened like a noose around the
Opposition's throat. Anyone who doesn't understand this understands nothing.

In this account, we have had to confront, at almost
every stage, the line that was applied and the one that was dismissed under the
name of "Trotskyism." The meaning of this struggle, its
general aspect, appears quite clearly to a
Marxist. While partial accusations of "Trotskyism,"
supported by an accumulation of real and imagined quotations
spanning a period of 25 years, could be misleading,
a coherent and comprehensive assessment of the struggle in
the realm of ideas waged over the last five years
shows that two lines have emerged. One was conscious
and methodical. It extended and developed Leninist strategic principles
in their application to the
internal problems of the USSR and the world revolution. This is the line
of the Opposition. The other, unconscious, contradictory, hesitant,
zigzagging, deviating from Leninism under the pressure of
enemy class forces during a period of
international political retreat : this is the leadership of the official leadership. When
people change, they more often, more easily, abandon
concepts than words to which they are accustomed. This is the
general law of change in the realm of ideas. In essence, the
leadership revised Lenin on almost all
fundamental questions, but it presented this revision as a
development of Leninism and labeled as "Trotskyism" what
is its revolutionary, international essence, in order to
camouflage itself not only outwardly but even in its
innermost being, so as to better adapt to the process of its own
drift.

Anyone who wants to understand this will not level the
ridiculous accusation that we have linked criticism of the draft program to exposing
the myth of Trotskyism. The present draft matured in
an era steeped in this myth. It was primarily its
authors who fueled it, took it as their starting point, and
judged everything in its light. Thus, this era is reflected
in the draft.

A new and extraordinarily instructive chapter has just been
added to the history of politics. It can be said to prove the
power that the creation of myths, or, to put it more
simply, slander used as a political weapon in the
realm of ideas, can wield. Experience demonstrates that
its value should not be underestimated. We are still far from having made
"the leap that will take us from the realm of necessity to that of
freedom." We live in a class society that is
impossible to conceive of without obscurantism, prejudice, and
superstition. A myth, corresponding to certain
traditional interests or habits, can always
acquire great power in a class-divided society. Nevertheless, relying
solely on a myth, even one that is planned and at the disposal of
all the resources of the State, makes it impossible to build a
broad political framework, especially a revolutionary one, and particularly so
in our era of abrupt upheavals. The
creation of myths inevitably becomes entangled in its own
contradictions. We have only cited a small part of it, although
it is perhaps the most important. Quite independently
of whether external circumstances will allow us
to complete our analysis, we firmly believe
that the objective analysis of events will support
the subjective analysis.

The radicalization of the working masses in Europe is an
indisputable fact, evident in the recent
parliamentary elections. But it is only just passing through its initial phase
. It is being countered by factors such as the
recent defeat of the Chinese revolution, which are paving the way for social
democracy. We do not intend to predict here the speed
at which this will happen. It is clear, in any case, that it will only become
the harbinger of a new revolutionary situation once
the Communist Party's appeal is
increasingly exerted at the expense of the significant reserves of social
democracy. We are not there yet. But we will get there, for
it is a matter of absolute necessity.

The uncertain direction currently being pursued by the leadership
of the Comintern, which is striving to steer sharply to the left, is
not in line with the policy being conducted within the USSR.
Yet, there is no sign of regime change or of an end to the
struggle against the revolutionary elements that have withstood all
trials. This contradiction stems not only
from the internal difficulties of the USSR—which
fully confirms the Opposition's opinion—but also corresponds
perfectly to the first phase of the radicalization of the working masses in Europe. The eclecticism of the Comintern
leadership's policy , the eclecticism of the draft program, constitute, in a way, a snapshot of the current state of the international working class, pushed to the left by events but which has not yet determined its path and which has given more than 9 million votes to German Social Democracy.

The future revolutionary progress will correspond to a
vast regrouping within the
working class and in all its organizations, including the
Communist International. The shape of this process is not yet clearly visible,
but the paths of its concrete development are clear.
The working masses, layer by layer, will pass from social
democracy to communism. The axis of communist politics will
shift from the right to the left. The Bolshevik line,
consistent with the group that, since 1923, since the defeat of the
German proletariat, has managed to swim against the tide amidst a hail
of accusations and persecution, will garner
increasing sympathy.

The organizational methods by which the ideas of true Leninism, which cannot be counterfeited, will triumph
in the Communist International and consequently in
the whole of the international proletariat, depend to a very large extent on the current leadership of the Communist International and consequently directly on the Fifth Congress.

However, whatever the decisions of this congress—
and we are prepared for the worst—the general judgment resulting from
the present era and its internal tendencies, the cause of which has
been informed in particular by the experience of the last five
years, tells us that the ideas of the Opposition do not need to
find their way outside the Communist International.
No one will make us deviate from this. The ideas we defend
will become its ideas and will find their expression in the
program of the Communist International.

III. ASSESSMENT AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION :

HIS TEACHINGS FOR THE COUNTRIES OF THE EAST

AND FOR THE ENTIRE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL

It was through analyzing the experience, errors, and tendencies
of the 1905 revolution that
Bolshevism, Menshevism, and the left wing of
German and international social democracy were definitively formed. Analyzing the experience
of the Chinese revolution is of equal importance
to the international proletariat today.

Yet this analysis, far from having begun, is forbidden.

Official literature is busy quickly aligning the facts with the
resolutions of the Comintern Executive Committee, whose inconsistency has become
glaringly obvious. The draft program smooths over
the sharp edges of the China problem as much as possible, but
essentially it endorses the disastrous policy pursued by the Comintern Executive Committee. A literary plea for failed schemes
is substituted for an analysis of one of the greatest processes in history .

1. The nature of the colonial bourgeoisie

The draft program states :

“Are provisional agreements with the native bourgeoisie
of colonial countries admissible only insofar
as they do not obstruct the revolutionary organization
of workers and peasants and wage an
effective struggle against imperialism ?”

This formula, although deliberately inserted into a
subordinate clause, is one of the fundamental tenets of the
project, at least for the countries of the East. The main clause
obviously speaks of "the liberation (of workers and
peasants) from the influence of the native bourgeoisie." However,
we are not judging as grammarians, but as politicians :
drawing on our own experience, we therefore say : "The
main clause here has only secondary value, while
the subordinate clause contains the essential point. As for the
formula as a whole, it is the Menshevik noose
around the necks of the proletarians of the East."

What provisional agreements are we talking about ? In politics, as
in nature, everything is "provisional." Perhaps
we are referring to strictly practical, circumstantial agreements ? It goes
without saying that we cannot, for the future, forgo such
rigorously defined agreements, concerning
precise measures, each serving a well-defined purpose. This is the case, for
example, when it comes to reaching an agreement with Guomindang students
to organize an anti-imperialist demonstration
, or when Chinese merchants provide aid to strikers
in a foreign concession. Such cases are by no means
excluded in the future, even in China. But then, what is the
relevance here of general political conditions : "Provided that
it (the bourgeoisie) does not oppose the revolutionary organization
of the workers and peasants and wages an effective struggle
(!) against imperialism ?"

The sole “condition” of any agreement with the bourgeoisie—
a separate, practical agreement, limited to specific measures, tailored to
each case under consideration—is that organizations
and flags not be mixed, either directly or indirectly, for a
day or an hour ; that red be distinguished from blue ; and
that the bourgeoisie not be believed in any way to be capable—or even
willing—of waging a real struggle against imperialism and not
obstructing workers and peasants. The other condition
is utterly useless to us for practical agreements concerning
specific measures. On the contrary, it could only
be detrimental to us, breaking the general line of our struggle against
the bourgeoisie, a struggle that does not cease, even during the brief
period of the “agreement.” It has long been said that
strictly practical agreements, which bind us in no way and
oblige us to nothing from a political standpoint, can, if
advantageous at a given moment, be concluded with the
devil himself. But it is absurd to demand at the same time
that the devil, on this occasion, convert completely to Christianity
and use his horns not against workers and
peasants, but exclusively for pious works. By
presenting such conditions, we would already be acting, in essence,
like the devil's advocates, and offering to become his
godfathers.

By imposing these absurd conditions, by pre-emptively flattering
the bourgeoisie, the Draft Program made it very clear
— despite the diplomatically subordinate nature
of the proposal—that it was precisely about long-term political coalitions
and not ad hoc agreements concluded
for practical reasons with a view to immediate measures. But
what does it mean in this case to demand that the bourgeoisie "effectively
" fight and "not obstruct" ? Are we formulating these conditions
to the bourgeoisie itself and demanding that it make
a public promise ? It will do as much as we want !

It will even send its delegates to Moscow, join the
Peasant International, become a sympathizer of
the Communist International 178, cast glances at the
Red International of Trade Unions, in short, promise everything that
will allow it - with our help - to better, more
easily, more completely deceive its workers and peasants,
throwing dust in their eyes... until the first opportunity,
like the one offered to them in Shanghai 179 •

Perhaps these are not political promises from
the bourgeoisie, which, let us repeat, will make them immediately,
thus securing our guarantee before the working masses ?
Perhaps they are an "objective," "scientific" judgment of
the native bourgeoisie, a kind of "sociological
" assessment of this bourgeoisie's capacity to fight and "not obstruct" ? Alas, as recent experience
shows , such assessments usually make the experts look like fools. This would be nothing if it were only the experts.

No doubt can remain :
the text is precisely about long-term policies. It would be superfluous
to include the question of practical, circumstantial agreements in
the program ; a tactical revolution "in the
present moment," addressing the measures to be adopted, would have sufficed. But the aim is to
justify and enshrine in the program the orientation, followed
yesterday, toward the Guomindang, which led to the crushing of the second
Chinese Revolution and is capable of leading more than one
to its downfall. 180

In accordance with the thinking of Bukharin, the true author
of the project, the focus is precisely on a general assessment of
the colonial bourgeoisie whose ability to fight and not
obstruct must be proven not by its own
oath, but by a strictly "sociological" scheme, that is
to say the 1001st scholastic scheme adapted to this opportunistic work
.

To make the demonstration clearer, let us quote here the
judgment made by Bukharin on the colonial bourgeoisie.

After a reference to the "anti-imperialist core" of colonial revolutions
and to Lenin (completely irrelevant), Bukharin
declares :

"The liberal bourgeoisie played
an objectively revolutionary role in China for many years, not just months, and
then exhausted itself. It was by no
means a 'glorious day' comparable to the
Russian liberal revolution of 1905."

Everything here is wrong from beginning to end. Lenin did indeed teach
that one must rigorously distinguish between the oppressed bourgeois nation
and the oppressor nation. From this, deductions of exceptional importance follow
, for example, in the case of a war
between an imperialist and a colonial country. For a pacifist, this war
resembles any other ; for a communist, the
war of a colonial nation against an imperialist nation is
a bourgeois-revolutionary war. Lenin placed
national liberation movements, colonial uprisings, and
wars of oppressed nations on the same level as bourgeois democratic revolutions,
particularly that of Russia in 1905. But Lenin
did not, at all, place
wars of national liberation above
bourgeois democratic revolutions, as Bukharin does now after his 180-degree turn. Lenin demanded
the distinction between the bourgeoisie of the oppressed country and that
of the oppressor country. But he never presented this problem anywhere.
and could not have done so—by asserting that the bourgeoisie
of a non-colonial country during the struggle for
national liberation must be more progressive and revolutionary than
the bourgeoisie of a non-colonial country during a period of
democratic revolution. Theoretically, nothing requires it.
History does not bear it out. However pitiful
Russian liberalism may be, even though its left wing—petty-bourgeois democracy
, the Social Democrats, and the Mensheviks—appears stunted, it is
hardly possible to argue that liberalism and bourgeois democracy
in China have shown more elevation and
revolutionary capacity than their Russian counterparts.

To present things as if the colonial yoke
necessarily gave a revolutionary character to the
national bourgeoisie is to reproduce in reverse the fundamental error of
Menshevism, which believed that the revolutionary nature of the Russian bourgeoisie absolutely stemmed from absolutist and feudal
oppression .

The question of the nature and policy of the bourgeoisie
is decided by the whole internal class structure of the nation
which is carrying out the revolutionary struggle, by the historical period in
which this struggle is taking place, by the degree of
economic, political and military dependence which binds the native bourgeoisie
to world imperialism as a whole or to a
definite part of it, and finally - and this is the essential point - by the
degree of class activity of the native proletariat and by the state of
its links with the international revolutionary movement.

A democratic revolution or national liberation
can enable the bourgeoisie to deepen and expand the
possibilities for exploitation. The autonomous intervention of the
proletariat in the revolutionary arena threatens to deprive them of these possibilities completely
.

Let's look at this more closely. The current leaders of
the Comintern tirelessly repeat that Chiang Kai-shek waged
war against imperialism while Kerensky (181) went hand
in hand with the imperialists. Conclusion : a relentless struggle had to be waged against Kerensky, while Chiang Kai-shek
should have been supported .

The link between Kerenskyism and imperialism is undeniable
. We can go back and point out that the
Russian bourgeoisie "dethroned" Nicholas II (182) with the blessing
of the British and French imperialists. Not only did Milyukov-
Kerensky (183) support Lloyd George-Poincaré's war (184),
but Lloyd George and Poincaré also supported Milyukov-Kerensky's revolution,
first against the Tsar, then against the
workers and peasants. This is absolutely beyond doubt.

But how did things turn out on this point in
China ? The "February" revolution took place in China in
1911. It was a great progressive event, although it was
carried out with the most direct participation of the imperialists.

Sun Yat-sen (185) recounts in his Memoirs how his organization
, in all its activities, was supported by the "aid" of the
imperialist countries, sometimes Japan, sometimes France, sometimes
the United States (186). While in 1917 Kerensky continued to participate in
the imperialist war, the Chinese bourgeoisie, also
"national," "revolutionary," etc., supported
Wilson's intervention (187) in the war, hoping that the Entente would help
liberate China. In 1918, Sun Yat-sen addressed the
Entente governments (188) with his plans for the economic recovery
and political liberation of China. There is no reason
to claim that the Chinese bourgeoisie, in its struggle
against the Manchu dynasty, displayed more
revolutionary qualities than the Russian bourgeoisie fighting against Tsarism,
or that there was a difference in principle between the attitude
adopted towards imperialism by Chiang Kai-shek and by
Kerensky.

But, the Comintern Executive Committee asserts, Chiang Kai-shek
did indeed wage war against imperialism. To present
things this way is to grossly distort reality.
Chiang Kai-shek waged war against the Chinese warlords
, agents of one of the imperialist states. This is not at
all the same as waging war against imperialism. Even
Tan Pingshan understood this (189). In the report he presented
to the Comintern Executive Plenary Assembly at the end of 1926, he characterized
the policy of the Guomindang center, headed by
Chiang Kai-shek, as follows :

"In the field of international politics, he has
a passive attitude, in the fullest sense of the term... He is
inclined to fight only against British imperialism ; as for
the Japanese imperialists, under certain conditions, he is
prepared to accept a compromise with them." (190)

The Guomindang's attitude towards imperialism was,
from the outset, not revolutionary but entirely collaborative
: it aimed to defeat and repel the agents of certain
imperialist powers in order to begin bargaining with these
powers or others on more advantageous terms. Quite
simply.

This entire approach to the problem is flawed. What
must be considered is not the attitude of each
native bourgeoisie toward imperialism “in general,” but its
position regarding the revolutionary historical tasks at hand
in its country. The Russian bourgeoisie was that of an
oppressive imperialist state. The Chinese bourgeoisie is that of an
oppressed colonial country. The overthrow of feudal Tsarism was
a progressive task in old Russia. Overthrowing the
imperialist yoke is a progressive historical task in China. But
the conduct of the Chinese bourgeoisie toward imperialism
, the proletariat, and the peasantry is not only no
more revolutionary than the attitude of the Russian bourgeoisie
toward Tsarism and the revolutionary classes of Russia,
but is perhaps even more reactionary and cowardly.

That's the only way to ask the question.

The Chinese bourgeoisie is realistic enough, and
knows the face of world imperialism intimately enough, to
understand that a truly serious struggle against it requires
such a powerful surge from the revolutionary masses that, from the
outset, it is the bourgeoisie itself that will be threatened. If the struggle
against the Manchu dynasty was a task of
lesser historical scope than the overthrow of Tsarism, the
struggle against world imperialism is, on the other hand, a historically
far greater problem. And if, from our very first steps, we taught
the workers of Russia not to believe that liberalism was
willing and petty-bourgeois democracy capable of
overthrowing Tsarism and abolishing feudalism, we should have
instilled this sense of distrust in the Chinese workers with equal force from the beginning
. Ultimately, Stalin
and Bukharin's entirely false new theory on the "immanence" of the
revolutionary spirit of the colonial bourgeoisie is nothing more than Menshevism
translated into the language of Chinese politics. It
simply serves to turn China's oppressed situation
into a political advantage for the Chinese bourgeoisie : it throws
a weighty supplement onto the scales, on the side of the bourgeoisie,
to counterbalance the scales of the
triply oppressed Chinese proletariat.

But, Stalin and Bukharin, the authors of the Draft Program, tell us
, Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Campaign
(191) provoked a powerful awakening of the working and
peasant masses. This is undeniable. But the fact that Guchkov and
Shulgin (192) brought Nicholas II's act of abdication with them to Petrograd
did not play a revolutionary role,
and therefore did not awaken the most crushed,
weary, and timid popular strata. But the fact that yesterday the "Laborist
" (193) Kerensky became Chairman of the Council of Ministers and
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces did not awaken the mass of
soldiers, did not drive them to the rallies, did not incite the
villages against the gentry ?

We can also ask the question more broadly. Does n't
all the activity of capitalism, in general, awaken
the masses, tear them away, according to the expression of the
Communist Manifesto, from the stupidity of
rural life, and launch the proletarian battalions into the struggle ?

But can we not substitute a historical judgment on the
objective role of capitalism as a whole, or of certain actions
of the bourgeoisie in particular, for our active, class-based,
revolutionary attitude toward capitalism and the activities of the
bourgeoisie ? Opportunist politics has always been based on
this kind of "objectivism"—non-dialectical, conservative, and
conformist. Marxism has always taught that the
revolutionary consequences of certain acts that the bourgeoisie is obliged
to perform because of its situation will be all the more
decisive, undeniable, and lasting the more independent the proletarian vanguard
is from the bourgeoisie, and the less inclined
it is to get caught in the bourgeois machine, to be
dazzled by the bourgeoisie, to overestimate its revolutionary spirit
and its capacity to establish a "united front" and the struggle
against imperialism.

Bukharin's judgment of the colonial bourgeoisie does
not withstand criticism in the theoretical, historical,
and political spheres. Yet, it is precisely this judgment that the
Draft Program, as we have seen, attempts to enshrine
.

An unacknowledged and unpunished wrong
always leads to another one immediately afterwards or prepares the way for it.

If yesterday the Chinese bourgeoisie was incorporated into the
revolutionary united front, today it is proclaimed that "it has
definitively passed into the camp of the counter-revolution".

But it is not difficult to discover how unfounded these enlistments
and transfers, carried out in a purely administrative manner
without any serious Marxist analysis, are
.

It is quite clear that the bourgeoisie does not join the
revolutionaries by chance or lightly, but because it is under
pressure from its class interests. Out of fear of the masses, it
then abandons the revolution or openly displays
a previously concealed hatred of it. But it can only
definitively switch to the camp of the counter-revolution—that is,
free itself from the need to "support" the revolution again
, or at least to flirt with it—when, through
revolutionary or other methods—those of Bismarck
(194), for example—it succeeds in satisfying its
fundamental class aspirations. Let us recall the history of the years 1848 and
1871. Let us recall that the Russian bourgeoisie could only turn
its back so resolutely on the revolution because it had received
from it the State Duma, namely, the means to act directly on
the bureaucracy and engage in negotiations with it. Nevertheless,
when the war of 1914-1917 revealed that the "renewed" regime
was incapable of ensuring the satisfaction of the main interests of
the bourgeoisie, the latter turned again to the side of the
revolution and its reversal was more brutal than in 1905.

Can it be said that the 1925-27 revolution in China satisfied
at least some of the fundamental interests of
Chinese capitalism ? No, China is currently as far
from genuine national unity and independence
as it was before 1925 (195). Yet, for the Chinese bourgeoisie, the
creation of a single domestic market, its protection against
cheaper foreign goods, constitutes almost
a matter of life or death, second in importance
only to maintaining the foundations of its
class domination over the proletariat and the poor peasantry. But for the
English and French bourgeoisies, maintaining China as a
colony is no less important than
economic autonomy is for the Chinese bourgeoisie. This is why there will
still be many leftward zigzags in the policies of the
Chinese bourgeoisie. In the future, there will be no shortage of temptations
for those who favor a united national front. To tell the Chinese communists today
, “Your coalition with the bourgeoisie was
just from 1924 to the end of 1927, but now it's worthless
because the bourgeoisie has definitively sided with the
counter-revolution,” is to disarm them once again
in the face of the objective reversals that will occur in the
current situation and the leftward zigzags that the
Chinese bourgeoisie will inevitably make. Chiang Kai-shek's war
against the North is already completely overturning the
mechanical framework devised by the authors of the draft program.

But the fundamental error in the official way
of posing the question will undoubtedly become most
strikingly, convincingly, and irrefutably apparent if we
recall the recent and highly significant fact that
Tsarist Russia was a combination of oppressor and
oppressed nations—that is, of Great Russians and “foreigners,
” many of whom found themselves entirely in the position
of colonies or semi-colonies. Lenin not only demanded
the utmost attention to the national question of the peoples of
Tsarist Russia, but he also proclaimed, against Bukharin and his ilk,
that the elementary duty of the proletariat of the dominant nation
was to support the struggle of the oppressed nations for their right to
self-determination, even to the point of separation. But did the party
conclude that the bourgeoisie of the nationalities
oppressed by Tsarism (Poles, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews,
Armenians, etc.) was more progressive, radical, and revolutionary
than the Russian bourgeoisie ? Historical experience shows
that the Polish bourgeoisie, even though the absolutist yoke was
combined with the nationalist yoke, was more reactionary than the
Russian bourgeoisie : in the Dumas, it felt the pull not of the
Cadets but of the Octobrists (196). The same was true of the
Tatar bourgeoisie. The unprecedented deprivation of rights suffered by the Jews
did not prevent the Jewish bourgeoisie from being even more cowardly,
more reactionary, and more spineless than that of Russia. Or
were the Estonian, Latvian, Georgian, or Armenian bourgeoisie
more revolutionary than those of Great Russia ? How
can such lessons of history be forgotten ! But
perhaps we must now recognize in retrospect that
Bolshevism was mistaken when, unlike the Bund, the
Dashnaks, the members of the Polish Socialist Party, the
Georgian Mensheviks and others, it urged, from the dawn of the
bourgeois democratic revolution, the workers of all oppressed nations
, of all the colonial peoples of Tsarist Russia, to
regroup in an autonomous class organization, to break
Any organizational link not only with the liberal
bourgeois parties, but also with the revolutionary parties of the petty
bourgeoisie, to win over the working class in the struggle against the
latter and, through the workers, to fight against them
in order to influence the peasants ? Have we not committed a
"Trotskyist" error here ? Have we not, with regard to
these oppressed nations, including some very backward ones
, skipped over the developmental stage corresponding to the
Guomindang ? How easy it is indeed to construct a theory
according to which the PPS, the Danchak-Tsutiun, the Bund, etc.,
were "particular" forms of a necessary collaboration
between different classes struggling against absolutism and the
national yoke ! Can we forget such lessons of history ?

Even before the events in China over the past three
years, it was clear to a Marxist (and it should
now be clear even to a blind man) that foreign imperialism, as
a direct factor in China's internal life, makes
Chinese Milyukovs and Kerenskys more cowardly in the final analysis
than their Russian prototypes. It was not for nothing that the first
Manifesto of our party proclaimed that the further
east one goes and the more petty and cowardly the bourgeoisie becomes, the more
important the tasks of the proletariat become. This
historical "law" applies equally fully to China (198).

"Our revolution is bourgeois ; that is why
the workers must support the bourgeoisie, say the
short-sighted politicians from the
liquidator camp. Our revolution is bourgeois,
we Marxists say ; that is why the
workers must open the people's eyes by showing them
the deceptions of the bourgeois politicians, teach them
not to believe words, to rely only on their own
strength, their organization, their unity, their armaments." (199)

This thesis of Lenin retains its full validity for
the entire East : it must at all costs have its place in the
program of the Communist International.

2. The stages of the Chinese revolution

For the Guomindang, the first stage was a period of
domination by the native bourgeoisie under the apologetic banner
of the "four-class bloc" (200). The second period,
after Chiang Kai-shek's coup, was that of
the experience of parallel and "autonomous" domination by
Chinese Kerenskyism. While the Russian populists (201) and the Mensheviks
openly gave their ephemeral "dictatorship" the form
of a dual power structure, Chinese "revolutionary democracy,
" on the other hand, had not grown sufficiently to reach
even this level. Since history, generally speaking, does
not work on command, it only remains to understand
that there is no, and will be no, “democratic
” dictatorship other than the one the Kuomintang has exercised since 1925. This
remains true regardless of whether the semi-unity of China
achieved by the Kuomintang is maintained in the immediate future
or whether the country is once again dismembered. But precisely
when the class dialectic of the revolution, having
exhausted all its other resources, placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the agenda,
bringing millions upon millions
of oppressed and dispossessed people from the cities and the countryside into the fold, the Executive Committee of the Communist International put the slogan of the democratic (that is, bourgeois and democratic) dictatorship of the workers and peasants
at the forefront . The answer to this formula was the Canton uprising, which, although premature and despite its adventurous leadership, unveiled the new stage, or more precisely, the future Chinese revolution , the third (202). It is necessary to emphasize this point. In seeking insurance against the sins of the past, the leadership, toward the end of last year, criminally forced the course of events, resulting in the abortion of Canton. But even an abortion can teach us much about the condition of the mother and the process of childbirth. The enormous importance, truly decisive from a theoretical point of view, that the events in Canton have in relation to the essential problems of the revolution

Chinese, is precisely conditioned by the fact that we are
here in the presence of something that happens so rarely in history and
politics ; a laboratory experiment on a gigantic scale.

We paid dearly for it ; but that obliges us all the more to
assimilate its lessons well (203).

One of the battle slogans of the Canton coup,
according to Pravda (No. 31), was the cry, “Down with the
Guomindang !” Yet, already in the aftermath of
Chiang Kai-shek's “betrayal” and after that of Wang Jingwei (a betrayal
not of class, but of our illusions), the Executive Committee of the Comintern made
solemn promises : “We will not abandon the
Guomindang banner” (204). The workers of Canton outlawed the
Guomindang by decriminalizing all its factions. This
means that, in order to accomplish the fundamental national tasks
of the bourgeoisie, not only the big bourgeoisie, but
also the petty bourgeoisie, presented no political force, party,
or faction alongside which the party of the proletariat could have
solved the problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution
. Specifically, the key to entering the position
lies in the fact that the problem of conquering the
peasant movement already falls entirely on the proletariat, directly on the
communist party ; to address the true solution of the
bourgeois-democratic problems of the revolution, power would have to
be entirely concentrated in the hands of the proletariat
.

Pravda reports on the short-lived
Soviet power in Canton :

"The decrees of the Canton Soviet decided, in
the interest of the workers, [...] control over production by the
workers, implementing this control through factory committees [...]
nationalization of large-scale industry, transportation, and
banks."

Further on, measures of this kind are cited :

“Confiscation of all apartments belonging to the upper
class for the benefit of the workers.” (205)

Thus, it was the workers of Canton who were in
power. Moreover, power actually belonged to the
Communist Party. The program of the new regime included
not only the confiscation of the lands of the gentry, insofar
as such lands existed in Guangdong, and
workers' control over production, but also the nationalization of
large-scale industry, banks, transportation, and even the
confiscation of the bourgeoisie's apartments and all their
property for the benefit of the workers. If these are the methods of the
bourgeois revolution, one wonders what
the proletarian revolution in China might look like ?

Although the directives of the Comintern Executive Committee made no mention of the
dictatorship of the proletariat or socialist measures, and although
Canton, with its petty-bourgeois character, was distinct from Shanghai,
Hankou, and other industrial centers of the country, the
revolutionary coup against the Guomindang automatically resulted
in the dictatorship of the proletariat. From its very inception, this dictatorship
was compelled, due to the overall situation, to implement
measures even more radical than those with which the
October Revolution began. And this fact, despite its paradoxical appearance
, naturally stems from both the social relations in China
and the entire development of the revolution.

Land ownership, both large and medium-sized, as found
in China, is most intimately intertwined with
urban capitalism, including foreign capital (206). There is no
caste of minor gentry in China that opposes the bourgeoisie.

The most widespread, common, and hated exploiter in
the countryside is the kulak-usurer, an agent of
urban finance capital. Thus, the agrarian revolution has as much an
anti-feudal character as an anti-bourgeois one. There will be little, if
any, stage in China similar to the first stage of
our October Revolution, during which the kulak marched
with the poor and middle peasants, often at their head, against the
landowner. The agrarian revolution in that country means, and
will henceforth mean, insurrection not only against the
gentry and the true bureaucrats, admittedly few in number, but
also against the kulak and the usurer. While in our country, committees of
poor peasants only intervened in the second stage of the
October Revolution, around the middle of 1918, in
China, in whatever form they may take, they will enter the scene as soon
as the agrarian movement is reborn. "Dekulakization" will be
the first step in China, not the second, of the Chinese October.

The agrarian revolution, however, does not constitute
the sole basis of the historical struggle currently unfolding
in China. Even the most radical agrarian revolution, land redistribution
— which the Communist Party will undoubtedly support to the bitter end—
will not, on its own, allow China to escape the economic impasse.
China equally needs its national unity and its
economic sovereignty, that is, customs autonomy
or, more precisely, a monopoly on foreign trade ; this
requires that it liberate itself from global imperialism. For the latter,
China remains not only the most important source
of enrichment but also guarantees its survival by serving as
a safety valve for the upheavals occurring
today within European capitalism and those
that will occur tomorrow within the American market.

This is what determines in advance the immense scope and
monstrous harshness of the struggle through which the Chinese masses
will have to pass ; all the actors in this fight already have
the opportunity to take the measure of it.

The enormous role of foreign capital in Chinese industry
and its habit of
relying directly on “national” forces to defend its appetites make
the program of workers' control even less feasible in
China than it was in our own country (207). The direct expropriation of
foreign capitalist enterprises first, and then Chinese ones,
will very likely be imposed by the course of the struggle in the
aftermath of the victorious uprising.

The same objective, social, and historical causes that
determined the outcome of "October" in the Russian Revolution
appear in China in an even more stark form. The
bourgeois and proletarian poles of the Chinese nation are
even more intransigently opposed, if possible, than in Russia, given
that, on the one hand, the Chinese bourgeoisie is directly
linked to foreign imperialism and its military apparatus, and that,
on the other hand, the Chinese proletariat made contact from the outset with
the Communist International and the Soviet Union. Numerically
, the Chinese peasantry is an even more dominant mass
than the Russian peasantry (208) ; but caught in the vise of
global contradictions, on whose resolution
its fate depends, in one way or another, the
Chinese peasantry is even more incapable than the Russian peasantry of
playing a leading role. Now, it is no longer a
theoretical prediction, but a fact verified to the very end and in all its
aspects.

These fundamental and indisputable social and political prerequisites
of the third Chinese revolution show not
only that the formula of democratic dictatorship is
obsolete without any hope of return, but also that the third
Chinese revolution, despite China's great backwardness, or rather
because of this backwardness compared to Russia, will not see a
"democratic" period, even for six months, as
was the case during the October Revolution from November 1917 to
July 1918 : it will be forced, from the beginning, to carry out the great
upheaval and the suppression of private property in the
cities and the countryside.

It is true that this perspective does not correspond to the
pedantic and schematic conception of the relationship between economics
and politics. But the responsibility for this discordance, which
shakes deeply entrenched prejudices—even though October
had already dealt them a serious blow—lies not with
"Trotskyism" but with the law of uneven development. In this
case, it is indeed applicable.

It would be pedantic to claim that, had
a Bolshevik policy been pursued during the
1925-1927 revolution, the Communist Party would certainly have seized
power. But to claim that this possibility was completely
excluded would be shameful philistinism. The mass movement
of workers and peasants was quite sufficient, as
was the disintegration of the ruling classes. The
native bourgeoisie sent its Chiang Kai-sheks and Wang Jingweis to
Moscow ; through its Hu Hanmins, it knocked
on the doors of the Comintern precisely because, faced with the
revolutionary masses, it felt utterly weak : it
understood its weakness and sought to protect itself in advance. The
workers and peasants would not have followed the
native bourgeoisie if we had not lassoed them along with it
. If the Comintern's policy had been even slightly correct,
the outcome of the CCP's struggle to win over the masses was
predetermined : the Chinese proletariat would have supported the communists
and the peasant war would have backed the revolutionary proletariat
.

If, from the very beginning of the Northern Campaign, we had
started establishing soviets in the "liberated" regions—the
masses were spontaneously striving for this with all their might—we
would have gained the necessary base and revolutionary element,
we would have concentrated the agrarian uprisings around us,
we would have created our army, we would have disintegrated that of the
enemy ; despite its youth, the Chinese Communist Party could have matured
thanks to the judicious leadership of the Comintern during these
exceptional years, and come to power, if not in all of China
at once, at least in a considerable part of its
territory. And above all, we would have had a party.

But it was precisely in the realm of leadership that
something absolutely monstrous occurred, a veritable
historical catastrophe : the authority of the Soviet Union, of the
Bolshevik party, of the Communist International, served entirely
and above all to support Chiang Kai-shek against the
Communist Party's own policies, and then to back Wang
Jingwei as the leader of the agrarian revolution. After
trampling the very foundation of Leninist policy and breaking the bones of the
fledgling Chinese Communist Party, the Executive Committee of the Comintern predetermined the victory
of Chinese Kerenskyism over Bolshevism, of the
Chinese Milyukovs over the Kerenskys, of Anglo-Japanese imperialism
over the Chinese Milyukovs.

This is the meaning - the only meaning - of what
happened in China in 1925-1927.

3. Democratic dictatorship or dictatorship of the proletariat ?

How did the last plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee
assess the experience gained in the Chinese revolution, including
that provided by the Canton uprising ? What
future prospects did it outline ? The resolution of the
February 1928 plenum, key to understanding the sections of the
Draft Program devoted to this subject, states the following regarding the
Chinese revolution :

"It is not accurate to characterize it as a
'permanent revolution' (the position of the representative of the
EC of the Comintern). The tendency to skip over the
bourgeois and democratic stage of the revolution while
simultaneously considering this revolution to be
'permanent' is an error analogous to that of Trotsky
in 1905."

Since Lenin left the leadership in
1923, the life of the Communist International has consisted essentially
of fighting against so-called "Trotskyism" and, more specifically,
against "permanent revolution." How, then, could it
have been possible that, on the fundamental problem of the
Chinese revolution, not only the Central Committee of the CCP, but also
the official delegate of the Comintern—that is, a leader who had
received special instructions—committed precisely the "error
" for which hundreds of men are in Siberia and in
prison ? The struggle over the Chinese question had already been going on for
two and a half years. When the Opposition said that the former Central Committee (Chen Duxiu) (211), under the influence of the Comintern's erroneous
directives , was pursuing an opportunistic policy, this judgment was dismissed as "slander." The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party was considered irreproachable. The renowned Tan Pingshan, with the approval of the entire 7th Plenum of the EC of the IC, swore :

"As soon as Trotskyism arose, the party and the
Chinese Young Communists immediately adopted, unanimously, a
resolution against it" (212).

However, when, despite all these “conquests,” events
unfolded according to their tragic logic, culminating first in
the revolution's initial debacle, then in a second, even more
appalling one, the leadership of the Chinese party was, within 24 hours
, rebranded as Menshevik and dismissed (213). But as soon as
a new, serious stage arrived, the new Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party was accused of having adopted (as we have already seen, not
in words but in deeds) an attitude of so-called
“permanent revolution.” The Comintern delegate followed the
same path. This striking, truly inconceivable fact can
only be explained by the “gaping” chasm that separates the
directives of the Comintern Executive Committee from the actual dynamics of the
revolution.

We will not dwell here on the myth of the "
permanent revolution" of 1905, which was circulated in 1924 to
sow confusion and mislead. Let us limit ourselves to examining how
this myth has been refracted in the problem of the
Chinese revolution.

The first paragraph of the February resolution, from which
the quote presented above was taken, thus justifies its
negative assessment of the so-called "
permanent revolution" :

"The current period of the Chinese revolution is that
of the bourgeois and democratic revolution, which is not yet
complete from the point of view of the economy (the
agrarian upheaval and the abolition of feudal relations), nor from that
of the struggle against imperialism (the unity of China and
national independence), nor from the point of view of the
class character of power (the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry)..."

This statement of reasons is an uninterrupted chain
of errors and contradictions.

The Executive Committee of the Comintern taught that the Chinese revolution must
ensure China's potential for development along the path of
socialism. This goal can only be achieved if the revolution does not
merely stop at the completion of bourgeois
democratic tasks, but if, in growing and progressing from one phase to
the next—that is, in developing continuously
— it leads China toward
socialist development. This is precisely what Marx meant
by permanent revolution. How then can one speak, on the one
hand, of the non-capitalist path followed by China's development
, and, on the other, deny the permanent nature of revolution
in general ?

But, replies the resolution of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, the revolution
is not yet complete, either from the standpoint of agrarian upheaval or from the
standpoint of the national struggle against imperialism. From this, one
deduces the bourgeois democratic character of the
Chinese revolution in the current period. In reality, the current period
is one of counter-revolution. Undoubtedly, the Executive Committee of the Comintern
means that the new wave of the Chinese revolution, or
more precisely the third Chinese revolution, will have a
bourgeois democratic character, given that the second
Chinese revolution of 1925-1927 resolved neither the agrarian question nor the
national problem. However, even in this amended form,
this reasoning rests on a complete misunderstanding of
the experience and lessons of both the Chinese
and Russian revolutions.

The February Revolution of 1917 had left unresolved in
Russia all the internal and international problems that
had led to it : feudalism in the countryside, the old
bureaucracy, the war, and the economic collapse. It was in
discussing this situation that not only the Socialist
Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, but also many leaders
of our own party, demonstrated to Lenin that "the
current phase of the revolution is that of a
democratic bourgeois revolution." In this essential consideration, the resolution
of the Executive Committee of the Comintern merely reiterates the objections of the
opportunists against Lenin and the struggle for the dictatorship of the
proletariat in 1917.

It goes on to say that the bourgeois democratic revolution
is incomplete not only from an economic and national point of view
, but also "from the point of view of the class nature
of power (dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasants)."
This can only mean one thing : the Chinese proletariat is forbidden
from struggling to seize power as long
as there is no "genuine" democratic government at the head of China
. Unfortunately, it doesn't indicate
where to find it.

The confusion is further compounded by the fact that the slogan of
soviets for China has been rejected for the past two years
because, we were told, the creation of soviets is only permissible
when one moves towards proletarian revolution (
Stalin's theory) (214). Yet, when the uprising took place, when those who
participated in it concluded that this was precisely the
transition to proletarian revolution, they were accused of "
Trotskyism." Can such methods be used to educate the party and
help it accomplish the greatest tasks ?

To salvage a desperate position, the resolution of the
Comintern Executive Committee (breaking with the entire line of thought)
hastily puts forward its final argument : it invokes imperialism
. It so happens that the tendency to skip the
bourgeois-democratic stage "is all the more harmful because, by posing the question in this way,
one eliminates (?) the most important national characteristic
of the Chinese revolution, which is a semi-
colonial revolution."

The only possible meaning of these absurd phrases is
the idea that the imperialist yoke will be overthrown by some kind of
non-proletarian dictatorship. This amounts to invoking "the
most important national characteristic" at the very last
moment to embellish either the native Chinese bourgeoisie or
the petty-bourgeois Chinese "democracy." This argument
can have no other meaning. But we have already examined
this concept in sufficient detail in the chapter
dealing with "the nature of the colonial bourgeoisie." There is no need to
return to it.

China must still endure a gigantic,
fierce, bloody, and protracted struggle for such fundamental gains
as the elimination of the most "Asiatic" forms of
servitude, and the liberation and unity of the country. But, as
the course of events has shown, it is precisely from this struggle that
the future will result in the impossibility of any
bourgeois direction, or even semi-direction, of the revolution.
The unity and emancipation of China constitute an
international problem today, just as the existence of the USSR does. It
can only be resolved by following the path of the fierce struggle of the
oppressed, starved, and persecuted masses, under the
direct leadership of the proletarian vanguard—a struggle not only
against world imperialism, but also against its
economic and political agents in China, against the bourgeoisie,
including the "native" bourgeoisie, and against all its lackeys. But
that is the path to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

From April 1917 onward, Lenin explained to his opponents, who
accused him of "defending permanent revolution
," that the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry
had already been partially realized during the period of dual
power. He later clarified that this dictatorship had found its
continuation during the first period of
Soviet power, when the entire peasantry participated in the
agrarian revolution alongside the workers, while the working class
had not yet confiscated factories and plants
and was experiencing workers' control. As for the
"class nature of power," the revolutionary socialist
and Menshevik "dictatorship" produced what it could :
the abortion of dual power. Regarding the agrarian revolution,
it gave birth to a perfectly healthy and robust baby, but it was
the dictatorship of the proletariat that had already delivered it. In
other words, everything that the theoretical formula of the dictatorship
of the proletariat and peasantry sought to unite was
decomposed into different factors by the course of the
class struggle. The empty school of half-power was provisionally handed
over to Miliukov-Tsereteli, while the true core of the
agrarian and democratic revolution remained the prerogative of the
victorious working class. Such was the dialectical dissociation of the
democratic dictatorship that the leaders of the Comintern's Executive Committee failed
to grasp. They plunged themselves into a political dead end,
mechanically condemning the method of "skipping over
bourgeois and democratic stages" and attempting to
steer a historical process with circulars. If
by bourgeois and democratic stage we mean the completion of
the agrarian revolution by following the path of "democratic
" dictatorship, then it was the October Revolution that boldly skipped
"over" the bourgeois and democratic stage. Should we
condemn it for that reason ?

How, under these conditions, can what was historically
inevitable in Russia, what was there the supreme expression of
Bolshevism, be found to be "Trotskyism" in China ?
No doubt by virtue of the same logic which proclaims that the
theory of the Martynovs, branded for twenty years in Russia by
Bolshevism, is suitable for China.

But can we generally accept an
analogy with Russia on this subject ? We reply that the slogan of
the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry was formulated by the
leaders of the Executive Committee of the Comintern exclusively and entirely according to the
method of analogies—but literary, formal analogies , not according to the method of historical materialism. An analogy between China and Russia
can perfectly well be accepted if the comparison is approached correctly. Lenin did this superbly . Moreover, it was not after the fact but in anticipation, foreseeing, as it were, the future errors of his successors. Lenin had to defend the October proletarian revolution hundreds of times , a revolution that had the audacity to seize power even though the bourgeois and democratic problems had not yet been solved. Lenin's response was : it is precisely for this reason, and it is precisely to provide them with a solution.

On January 16, 1923, Lenin wrote to the pedants
who spoke out against the conquest of power, referring to
an "undeniable" argument 215 ; the fact that Russia was not
ready for socialism :

“It does not even occur to them, for example, that
Russia, which is situated on the border between civilized countries and
countries that war is leading definitively
towards civilization for the first time, countries of the entire Orient, countries
located outside Europe, that, precisely for this reason,
Russia had to manifest certain particularities, which are
obviously arranged in the general line of the evolution
of the world, but which make its revolution distinct from
all those which preceded it in the countries of
Western Europe and which bring certain partial innovations
during the transition that leads to the
Eastern countries.” (216)

For Lenin, the "particularity" which brought
Russia closer to the countries of the East was that, from the dawn of the
movement, the young proletariat had to sweep away feudal barbarism and all other old things
itself in order to forge its path to socialism .

Therefore, if we start from Lenin's analogy
between China and Russia, we must say that, from the perspective of
the political nature of power, everything that could be achieved as
a democratic dictatorship was attempted in China, first
in Sun Yat-sen's Canton, then in the march from
Canton to Shanghai, and finally in Wuhan, where the
Left Guomindang appeared in its purest form—that is,
according to the directives of the Comintern Executive Committee, as the organizer of the
agrarian revolution and, in reality, as its executioner. As for the
tasks of the bourgeois and democratic revolution, they will
occupy the first period of the future dictatorship of the
Chinese proletariat and poor peasants. While not only the role
of the Chinese bourgeoisie, but also that of "democracy",
has been revealed, while it has become absolutely undeniable
that, in future battles, "democracy" will exercise its
functions as executioner even more than in the past, launching
now the slogan of democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry is simply to allow the concealment
of new varieties of the Guomindang and to set a trap for the
proletariat.

To be thorough, let us recall what Lenin said briefly about
the Bolsheviks who continued to oppose the SR and
Menshevik experience with the slogan of a "true" democratic dictatorship
:

"He who speaks only of 'the revolutionary
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry'
is lagging behind life, he has in fact gone over to the side
of the petty bourgeoisie against the proletarian class struggle
, he must be relegated to the archives of
pre-revolutionary 'Bolshevik' rarities (one could say :
the archives of the 'old' Bolsheviks.") (218)

These words sound today as if they were
still relevant.

It goes without saying that there is absolutely no question, at present, of urging the
Chinese Communist Party to rise up immediately and seize
power. The course of action to be taken depends solely on the circumstances.
The consequences of a defeat cannot be eliminated
simply by revising tactics. Currently, the revolution is
receding. The half-hidden rhetoric in the resolution of the
Comintern Executive Committee, claiming that the revolution is facing a
resurgence because countless
earlier French translations in China use Ou-chang or Wuchang instead of
Wuhan, is utter nonsense, since Trotsky uses Wuhan to mean
"Wuhan government."

In this regard, it should be noted that all the executions and a cruel
commercial and industrial crisis testify to criminal
recklessness and nothing else. After three considerable defeats,
an economic crisis does not excite,
on the contrary, it depresses the already exhausted proletariat. The
executions destroy the politically weakened party. 219 • We
have entered in China a period of retreat, therefore
of deepening in the field of theory, of
critical self-education of the party, of the creation and strengthening of
solid footholds in all areas of the
workers' movement, of the formation of cells in the villages, of the leadership
and unification of the partial struggles, first defensive and then
offensive, of the workers and poor peasants.

Where will the new flow of the masses begin ? What
circumstances will give the proletarian vanguard
, placed at the head of millions of proletarians, the
necessary revolutionary impetus ? This cannot be predicted. The future
will show whether internal processes will suffice or whether an
external shock will be needed.

There are sufficient reasons to believe that the debacle of the
Chinese revolution, closely conditioned by misguided leadership
, will allow the Chinese and foreign bourgeoisies to
triumph to some extent over the appalling economic crisis
currently ravaging the country : it goes without saying that this will be
at the expense of the workers and peasants. This phase of
"stabilization" will regroup the workers, give them
cohesion, restore their class confidence
, only to then pit them, once again, more brutally,
against the enemy, but at a more advanced historical stage. Only
when a new wave of the proletarian movement's offensive arises
will the prospect
of an agrarian revolution be seriously considered.

It is not out of the question that the first stage of this
future third revolution will reproduce, in a very abbreviated and
modified form, the stages already gone through, by presenting, for example,
some new parody of a "united national front." But
this first stage will hardly suffice to allow the Communist Party to
put forward and proclaim before the masses its
"April theses," that is to say, its program and its tactics for
seizing power.

But what does the Draft Programme say about this ?

"Here (in China), the transition to the dictatorship of the
proletariat is only possible through a whole series of
preparatory stages, following a whole period
of transformation during the growth of the
bourgeois democratic revolution into a socialist revolution."

In other words, all the "degrees" passed do not count ;
the Program Project sees ahead what lies behind.

This is a compliant approach to the issue. It opens
the door wide to new experiments in the style of
the Guomindang's policies. Thus, by concealing
past mistakes, one inevitably paves the way for new ones
.

If we approach the new rise, which will inevitably develop
at an incomparably faster pace than
the previous ones, while maintaining the outdated scheme of "
democratic dictatorship", we can be certain that the third revolution,
like the second, will be doomed.

4. Adventurism, a consequence of opportunism

The second paragraph of the same resolution from the
February plenary session of the EC of the IC states :

"The first wave of the vast revolutionary movement
of workers and peasants, which marched,
essentially, under the slogans and, to a large extent,
under the leadership of the Communist Party, has passed. It will
end in a whole series of centers of the
revolutionary movement with the most cruel defeats of the workers and
peasants, with the material destruction of the Communists,
and in general of the revolutionary cadres of the
workers' and peasants' movement." (Emphasis added. LT)

When "the wave" was rising, the EC said that the whole
movement was marching behind the blue flag and the
leadership of the Guomindang, which was even replacing the soviets.

This is precisely why the Communist Party was subordinate to the
Guomindang. But it is also precisely for this reason that the
revolutionary movement ended in "the most crushing
defeats." Now that these defeats are acknowledged, there is an attempt
to completely erase the Guomindang, to make it seem as if it
had never existed, as if the Executive Committee of the Comintern had not proclaimed
that the blue flag was also its banner (220).

"We used to be told that there hadn't been a single
defeat, neither in Shanghai nor in Wuhan : there were only stages of
a revolution moving toward a higher stage." That's what
we were taught. Now, it's suddenly proclaimed that the
sum of all these stages constitutes "the most crushing
defeats." However, to somewhat camouflage
this unprecedented failure of prediction and assessment, the
concluding paragraph notes :

"The Executive Committee of the Comintern mandates that all
sections of the Comintern must combat the slander of
social democracy and Trotskyists claiming that the
Chinese revolution has been liquidated (?)."

The first paragraph of the resolution told us
that "Trotskyism" consisted of believing the
Chinese revolution to be permanent, that is, transforming itself during
its growth, currently transitioning from a
bourgeois to a socialist phase. According to the last
paragraph, we learn that, according to the
"Trotskyists'" conception, "the Chinese revolution is liquidated." How
can a liquidated revolution be permanent ? This is
pure Bukharin. One must be irresponsibly reckless
to allow such contradictions, which undermine
all revolutionary thought at its very root.

If by "liquidation" of the revolution we mean that
the workers' and peasants' offensive has been repelled and drowned
in blood, that the masses are retreating and ebbing away, that before
a new surge, in addition to other circumstances, molecular processes must still occur
within the masses themselves, processes
that require a time impossible to predict. If
this is what we mean by "liquidation," then it is no different
from the "most crushing defeats" that the Executive Committee of the Comintern was
ultimately forced to acknowledge.

Or should we understand the word "
liquidation" literally as the annihilation of the Chinese revolution, that is,
of any possibility, any eventuality of its rebirth in
a new stage ? One could only seriously discuss
such a prospect in two cases, without sowing confusion
: if China were doomed to dismemberment and
total disappearance—but there is not the slightest reason for this
hypothesis—or if the Chinese bourgeoisie proved capable
of resolving the fundamental problems of Chinese life through
its own non-revolutionary means. Is it not this latter scenario that the theorists of the "four-class bloc," who have brought the Communist Party to its knees under the yoke of the bourgeoisie,
are now trying to attribute to us ?

History repeats itself. The blind, who for a year and a
half failed to grasp the magnitude of the 1923 defeat,
accused us, with regard to the German revolution, of being "liquidators
." But even this lesson, which cost
the International dearly, did not benefit them. Now, reviving
their old formulas, they are applying them not to Germany,
but to China. It is true that they feel, with greater urgency
than four years ago, the need to find "liquidators" ; indeed
, now it is all too obvious that, if
anyone truly "liquidated" the second Chinese revolution, it was
the authors of the course directed at the Guomindang.

The strength of Marxism lies in its capacity for prediction.
In this sense, the Opposition can invoke the complete confirmation
of its predictions by experience : first, concerning the Guomindang
as a whole ; second, regarding the "
Left" Guomindang and the Wuhan government ; and finally, concerning
the "down payment" made on the third revolution, that is,
the Canton uprising. Could there be better confirmation
of the correctness of our views in the theoretical realm ?
The same opportunist line which, through a policy of
capitulation to the bourgeoisie, already provoked
the most crushing defeats during the first two stages of the revolution
, "transformed itself and worsened" during the third
stage, becoming a policy of adventurist raids
against the bourgeoisie, thus completing the failure.

If the leadership had not been so quick yesterday to forget the
defeats it had itself caused, it would have
started by explaining to the Chinese Communist Party that
victory is not achieved in the blink of an eye, that on the path to
insurrection there is still a whole period of tense,
tireless, furious struggles for the political conquest of the workers and
peasants.

On September 27, 1927, we said to the presidium of the EC of
the IC :

“Today's newspapers announce that the
revolutionary army has taken Shantou. For several
weeks now, the armies of He Long and Ye Ting
have been advancing. Pravda calls them revolutionaries. But
I ask you : what prospects are
opening up for the Chinese revolution following
the revolutionary army's move to Shantou ?
What are the movement's slogans ? What is its program
? What forms of organization should it take
? Where has the slogan of the
Chinese soviets, suddenly put forward—for one day—by
Pravda in July, gone ?”

Without first opposing the Communist Party to the Guomindang as a
whole, without this party stirring up the masses in favor of the
soviets and the power of the soviets, without its own mobilization of the
masses under the slogans of agrarian revolution and
national liberation, without the creation, expansion, and strengthening
on the ground of soviets of deputies, workers, peasants,
and soldiers, the insurrection of He Long and Ye Ting,
even independently of the opportunism of their policy, could only
be a revolutionary adventure, a
pseudo-communist Makhnovist venture (222). It could only break against its
own isolation, and it did break (223).

The Canton uprising was a larger
– scale and more serious replay of the adventure of He Long and Ye
Ting, with infinitely more tragic consequences.

The February resolution of the Executive Committee to the Comintern combated the
putschist mindset within the Chinese Communist Party, that is, the tendency to
organize armed engagements. However, it failed to acknowledge that
these tendencies constituted a reaction against the entire
opportunistic policy of 1925-1927 and the inevitable consequence of the strictly military order
, issued from above, to "change course"
without any assessment of past actions, without
an open review of the fundamentals of tactics, and without a clear vision of
the future. The He Long campaign and the Canton uprising
were—and under those circumstances, they could not have been otherwise—
outbreaks of putschism.

No true antidote to
putschism and opportunism can be devised without a thorough understanding of this truth : the leadership of the workers' and poor peasants'
uprising , the conquest of power, and the establishment of the revolutionary dictatorship now rest entirely on the Chinese Communist Party. If the latter fully grasps this perspective, it will be just as unwilling to improvise military raids against cities or stage ambush uprisings as it is to slavishly follow the enemy's banner.

The resolution of the Comintern Executive Committee condemns itself to
sterility, if only because it discourses in a completely
abstract manner on the inadmissibility of skipping
steps, on the harmfulness of putschism, and because it completely
ignores the class-based nature of the Canton uprising and
the short-lived Soviet regime it spawned.
We in the opposition know that this uprising was an
adventure attempted by the leadership to salvage its "prestige."

But it is clear to us that even an adventure unfolds
according to laws determined by the structures of the social environment.
This is why we seek to discover in the
Canton uprising the features of the future stage of the Chinese revolution. These
features coincide entirely with the historical analysis we
had established before this uprising. But it is equally the
duty of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, which considers the
Canton uprising to have been a just and normal stage in the unfolding
struggle, to characterize it clearly from a class perspective.

Yet, the resolution of the EC's Executive Committee makes no mention of this
, even though the plenum convened immediately after the
events in Canton ? Is this not the most
convincing proof that the current leadership of the EC, by stubbornly
following a false line, is forced to content itself with talking about
alleged errors committed in 1905 or at some other time,
but does not dare to address the Canton uprising of 1927, the
significance of which undermines the scheme of revolution in the East
as established by the Draft Program ?

5. The Soviets and the Revolution

The February resolution of the EC of the Comintern holds "Comrade
N[eumann] 224 and others" responsible for the fact that "there was no
elected soviet in Canton" as the organ of the insurrection
(underlined in the text of the resolution (225). This accusation
actually contains a surprising admission.

The Pravda report (No. 31), based on
direct documentation, announced that the power of the soviets had
been established in Canton. But it contained not a single word
indicating that the Cantonese soviet was not elected, that is,
was not a soviet (for how could a soviet not be elected ?).

We learned this through a resolution. Let us reflect on it for a moment.
The Executive Committee of the Comintern now teaches that a soviet is necessary
to carry out the insurrection, but not beforehand. Yet
, when the insurrection is decided upon, there is no
soviet ! Creating an elected soviet is no simple matter :
the masses must know from experience what it is,
understand it, and their past must have accustomed them to an
elected Soviet organization. It wasn't even a question in China,
because the slogan of soviets was labeled Trotskyist
precisely during the period when it should have become the driving force
of the entire movement. When, in great haste, the insurrection was decreed
to make people forget their own defeats, it was
simultaneously necessary to designate a soviet by command
. If we do not fully expose the roots of this
error, we can transform even the slogan of the soviets into
a noose to strangle the revolution.

Lenin explained to the Mensheviks that the
fundamental historical task of the soviets is to organize, or help
organize, the conquest of power so that, in the aftermath of
victory, they become the apparatus of that power. His epigones—not his
disciples—conclude that
soviets can only be organized at the last minute. They retroactively transform
Lenin's general principle into a simplistic formula that, far
from serving the revolution, endangers it.

Before the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917,
there had been Soviet and
Menshevik Soviets for nine months. Twelve years earlier, the first
revolutionary Soviets had existed in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
dozens of other cities. Before the
1905 Soviet spread to the factories and workshops of the capital,
a Soviet of
Printing Workers' Deputies had been established in Moscow during the strike. A few months earlier, in May
1905, the Ivanovo-Voznesensk strike had given rise to a
leading body that already displayed the essential features of a Soviet
of Workers' Deputies. More than twelve years elapsed between the
first attempt to create a Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the
monumental experience of establishing Soviet power.

Obviously, this term does not necessarily apply
to other countries, including China. But to imagine that
Chinese workers will be able to establish soviets using
a simple formula that merely replaces Lenin's generalization
is to replace the dialectic of revolutionary action with
a powerless and tedious pedantic prescription. It is
not on the eve of insurrection, with the slogan of the
immediate conquest of power, that soviets should be established ; indeed
, if things have reached the point of seizing power, if the
masses are ready for insurrection, without the existence of soviets,
it is because other forms and methods
of organization have already been at work, enabling the preparatory work
necessary for the success of the insurrection. Then the question of the
soviets becomes of secondary importance, reduced to a
problem of organization or, even less so, to a question of
vocabulary. The task of the soviets is not simply to
exhort the masses to insurrection or to carry it out, but
rather to lead the masses to uprising through the
necessary stages. Initially, the soviet does not win over the masses at all
with the slogan of insurrection, but through other
partial slogans. Only later, step by step, does it lead
the masses to this slogan, without scattering them along the way,
thus preventing the vanguard from becoming detached from the rest of the class.

Most often, and above all, the soviet is formed on the basis of the
strike struggle, which has before it the prospect of
revolutionary development, but which, at the given moment, is limited to
economic demands. In action, the masses must
feel and understand that the soviet is their own organization,
that it unites its forces for struggle, for resistance, for
self-protection, and for the offensive. This cannot be felt and understood in the action
of a single day, nor generally in any action carried out in a single act, but rather through the experience acquired over several weeks, months, or even years, with or without interruption. This is why only a leadership of epigones and bureaucrats can restrain a mass that is awakening and rising up to create soviets, while the country is going through a time of revolutionary upheavals in which the working class and poor peasants in the countryside see the prospect of conquering power opening up before them, even if only in a later stage and even if in the envisaged stage this prospect is accessible only to a minority.

This is the conception we have always had of the soviets.
We appreciated them as a broad
and flexible form of organization open to masses who are only just awakening, from the
first steps of their revolutionary rise, and capable of uniting the
working class as a whole, regardless of the number of
those within it who are sufficiently developed to
understand the problems of the conquest of power.

Do we still need to cite written testimonies on this subject ? Here is
what Lenin wrote about the soviets at the time of the
first revolution :

"The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party has never
ceased to use, during a more or
less strong revolutionary upsurge, certain non-party organizations, such as
soviets of workers' deputies, in order to increase
the influence of the Social Democrats over the working class and
to consolidate the Social Democratic labour movement." (226)

The literary and historical accounts of this kind that
we could cite are countless. But it seems that the
question is already clear without them.

Taking the opposite view, the epigones
transformed the soviets into a parade uniform, with which the party
merely dresses the proletariat on the eve of seizing
power. But it is precisely then that it becomes clear that
soviets cannot be improvised in 24 hours, on command, directly
with the aim of triggering an insurrection. Experiments of
this kind inevitably take on the character of a fiction,
designed to mask, through the ritualistic appearance of the soviet system
, the absence of the conditions necessary for seizing power
. This is what happened in Canton, where the soviet was
simply appointed on orders to comply with the ritual. This is
where the way the epigones frame the question leads.

During the controversy surrounding the
events in China, the Opposition was accused of a
seemingly blatant contradiction : while from 1926 onward the Opposition
proposed the slogan of soviets in China, its
representatives had spoken out against them in Germany in the
autumn of 1923. Perhaps never has the spirit of political scholasticism
manifested itself so strikingly as in this accusation.
Yes, we demanded that the creation of soviets in China,
as organizations of workers and peasants with their
own distinct value, be addressed in due course, when the tide was rising. The
primary purpose of the soviets should have been to oppose the workers and
peasants to the Guomindang bourgeoisie and its agency, its
left wing. The slogan of the soviets in China meant, first and
foremost, breaking the shameful "four-class bloc" that
was leading to self-destruction and extricating the Communist Party from the Guomindang. The
center of gravity, therefore, lay not in an abstract form
of organization, but in a class line. In contrast, in
Germany in the autumn of 1923, it was merely a matter of a form
of organization. Due to the extreme passivity, delay, and
sluggishness of the leadership of the Communist International and the
KPD (Communist Party of Germany), the opportunity to call on workers to form soviets had been missed
. The factory committees, acting on their own initiative and
under pressure from the rank and file, occupied
the place in the German workers' movement in the autumn of 1923 that the
soviets would certainly have taken, with far greater success, had the
Communist Party pursued a just and bold policy.

Meanwhile, the situation was extremely serious. To waste any more
time would be to definitively let a revolutionary opportunity slip away
. Insurrection was finally placed on the agenda
, and its launch was planned for the
shortest possible time. To launch the slogan of the
soviets under such circumstances would have been the greatest theoretical folly imaginable. The
soviet is not a talisman containing miraculous power.

In the situation at the time, hastily created soviets would have been
mere stand-ins for the factory committees. The
latter would have had to be stripped of their last revolutionary functions and
transferred to the newly formed soviets, which lacked authorities
and for how long ? In conditions where every day counted.

Revolutionary action would have been replaced by the most
harmful game, that of playing with trifles in the
field of organization.

It is undeniable that the Soviet form of organization
can be of enormous importance, but only when it
translates a sound political line in a timely manner. Conversely,
it can take on a negative significance of
considerable scope when it becomes a fiction, a fetish, an
empty shell. German soviets created at the very last
minute in the autumn of 1923 would have brought nothing new
politically, but they would have introduced a great deal of confusion
in the area of organization. In Canton, it was even worse.

The soviet, hastily created to observe rituals, served only to
camouflage an adventurist coup. That is why we
learned afterward that the Canton Soviet was like an old
Chinese dragon, merely drawn on paper. The politics
of puppets and paper dragons is not ours.

We opposed the improvisation of
telegraph soviets in Germany in September 1923. We supported
the creation of soviets in China in 1926. We would have opposed the
creation of a carnival soviet in Canton in December 1927. There
is no contradiction here. On the contrary, there is a profound
unity in the conception of the dynamics of the
revolutionary movement and its forms of organization.

The problem of the role and significance of the soviets, which has
been disfigured, confused and obscured by the theory and practice
applied in recent years, has not been
clarified at all in the Draft Program.

6. The problem of the nature of the future Chinese revolution

The slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, drawing
the poor peasants behind it, is inextricably linked to the
problem of the socialist character of the future, the third
revolution in China. Now, since it is not only history that
repeats itself, but also the errors that men make in response to its demands
, we already hear the
following objection : China is not yet ready for
socialist revolution. But this is an abstract and dead way of posing the
question. Was Russia, considered in isolation, ready for socialism
? According to Lenin, no. It was ready for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the only method for resolving urgent national
problems .
However, the fate of the dictatorship as a
whole is ultimately determined by the course of
world developments. This does not preclude, but rather
clearly presupposes, a just policy of proletarian dictatorship
, the consolidation and development of the alliance
between workers and peasants, and the use of all measures
that promote adaptation both to national conditions and
to the course of world developments. This is also
entirely true for China.

In the same article, "On Our Revolution" (January 16,
1923), in which Lenin establishes that
Russia's original features reproduce in their development the particularities
of the evolution of Eastern countries, he describes as "utterly
banal" the argument of European social democracy which
asserts that "we are not big enough to achieve
socialism, that we do not have, according to the expression of all
sorts of 'learned gentlemen' back home, the
objective economic premises of socialism." But if Lenin
mocks these "learned gentlemen," it is not because he
himself recognizes the existence of the economic foundations of
socialism in Russia, enabling it to be built by
its own efforts, but because it in no way follows from their
absence that the conquest of power must be abandoned, as
the pedants and philistines thought and still believe
. In this article, Lenin responds for the hundred and first or
thousand and first time to the sophisms of the heroes of the First International
: “This undeniable thesis (that Russia was not
ready for socialism) is not decisive for judging our revolution.” (227) This is what the authors of the Draft Program
neither want nor can understand . The thesis of the lack of economic and cultural maturity, both in Russia and in China—and obviously even more so in China than in Russia—cannot be contested in itself. But one cannot in any way deduce from this that the proletariat must renounce power when this conquest is dictated by the entire historical atmosphere and by a revolutionary situation in the country.

The concrete, political, current historical question boils down
to not whether China is economically ready to
establish its own socialism, but rather whether, in the
political sphere, it is ready for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

These two questions are by no means identical. They would be if there were not a law of uneven
development in the world . In this case, this law, which extends entirely to the reciprocal relationship between economics and politics, is perfectly applicable. Is China, then, ready for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? Only the experience of struggle can answer this question indisputably. For this very reason, only the struggle can decide when and under what conditions the unification, liberation, and rebirth of China will take place. To say that China is not even ready for the dictatorship of the proletariat is thereby asserting that the third Chinese revolution is postponed for many years.

There would certainly be little hope left if the vestiges
of feudalism were truly dominant in the Chinese economy,
as the leaders of the Comintern Executive Board claim. But
fortunately, vestiges, in general, cannot
dominate. On this point as well, the Draft Program does not
rectify the errors made, but on the contrary, reaffirms them
in a roundabout and nebulous way. The draft speaks of "the
predominance of medieval feudal relations in both
the country's economy and its political superstructure." This is
radically false. What does "predominance" mean ? Does it refer to the
number of people involved ? Or to the dominant and
leading role they play in the country's economy ? The
extremely rapid internal growth of industry, based on
the importance of commercial and banking capital and its conquest
of the country ; the complete dependence of
the most important peasant regions on the market ; the
enormous and growing role of foreign trade ; and the
total subordination of the Chinese countryside to cities—all these facts
affirm the total predominance, the direct domination, of
capitalist relations in China. Social relations of serfdom and
semi-serfdom are certainly very important. They
partly date back to the feudal era, but they are also, to a certain extent,
new formations, resurgences of the past due to the delayed
development of the productive forces, agrarian overpopulation
, the influence of commercial and usurious capital, and so on. But what
dominates is not "feudal" relations (or more
precisely, serfdom and, in general, pre-capitalist relations),
but rather capitalist relations. It is only this predominant role
of capitalist relations that makes it possible
to seriously consider the prospect of proletarian hegemony
in the national revolution. Otherwise, the extremes would
not meet.

"The strength of the proletariat in any
capitalist country is infinitely greater than the proportion of the
proletariat in the total population. This is because the
proletariat economically controls the center and
nerves of the entire capitalist economic system, and also
because, in the economic and political sphere, the
proletariat expresses, under capitalist domination, the
real interests of the vast majority of workers."
Thus the proletariat, even when it constitutes a minority in the population (or when it is the conscious and truly revolutionary
vanguard of the proletariat that constitutes this minority), is capable of overthrowing the bourgeoisie and drawing to its side many allies from the mass of the semi-proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie, a mass that will never declare itself in advance for the domination of the proletariat, that will not understand the conditions and tasks of this domination, but will only become convinced by its subsequent experience of the inevitability, the justice, the legitimacy of the proletarian dictatorship.” (228)

The role of the Chinese proletariat in production is already
considerable. It will only grow in the
coming years. As events have shown, its political role
could have been significant. But the entire policy of the
leadership has been directed against the possibility for the proletariat
to secure the leading role.

The draft program states that the construction of socialism
in China can only succeed "if directly
supported by the countries of proletarian dictatorship." Thus,
regarding China, they acknowledge what the party has always
admitted concerning Russia. But if there are not
sufficient internal forces in China to build
socialist society on their own, then, according to the
Stalin-Bukharin theory, the Chinese proletariat should not seize
power at any stage of the revolution. Or does the very
existence of the USSR resolve the question in the opposite direction ? In that case, it
would appear that our technique would be sufficient to build
socialist society not only in our own USSR but also in China—that is, in two of the most economically backward
countries with a combined population of 600 million. Or can one accept in China the inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat because this dictatorship will be introduced into the circuit of the world socialist revolution and will become not only a link in it but also one of its driving forces ? But it is precisely in this way that Lenin posed the problem of the October Revolution, whose “originality” lies precisely in a development analogous to that of the Eastern countries. We thus see how the revisionist theory of socialism in one country, created in 1925 to combat “Trotskyism,” sows discord and confusion every time an important and new revolutionary problem is addressed.

The Draft Program goes even further in this direction.
It contrasts China and India with "pre-1917 Russia,"
Poland ("etc.") as countries "possessing a certain
minimum of industry sufficient to triumphantly build
socialism," or (as stated more precisely and
more erroneously elsewhere) as countries that have "the
necessary and sufficient material bases for building full socialism
." This, as we already know, is a genuine
play on words regarding Lenin's expression about
"necessary and sufficient bases." This is an unacceptable deception
, since Lenin precisely enumerates the political and
organizational bases, including those of technology, culture, and
international standing. But the essential problem remains
how to determine a priori the minimum level of industry
sufficient to build complete socialism, when it
is a global struggle between two economic systems,
between two social regimes, and when, moreover, our economic base
in this struggle is infinitely weaker ?

If we consider only the economic lever, it is clear that
ours, that of the USSR, and even more so that of
China and India, is infinitely less powerful than that of
global capitalism. But the entire problem will be resolved by
the revolutionary struggle between two systems, a struggle of
global scope. In the political struggle, the most powerful lever is on
our side, or, to be more precise, can and must, if we
pursue a just policy, fall into our hands.

Still in the same article, "On Our Revolution,"
after the words "to create socialism requires a certain level
of culture," Lenin remarks : "Although no one can
say what this level is." Why can't anyone say ?
Because this question is resolved through struggle, through
global emulation between two social systems and two
cultures. Breaking completely with this thought of Lenin,
which is deduced from the very heart of the problem, the draft program
asserts that pre-1917 Russia possessed precisely
this "minimum of technology," and consequently also of
culture, necessary to build socialism in a single
country. The authors of the draft attempt to say in the program
that, a priori, "no one can say"...

It is impossible, it is absurd, to seek the criterion of a
"sufficient minimum" in national statistics ("Russia
before 1917") when the entire problem is resolved by
revolutionary dynamics. It is on this misleading, arbitrary criterion
, isolated from a national perspective, that
the theoretical basis of the narrow-minded national spirit in politics rests, a spirit that is the
source of inevitable national-reformist and social-
patriotic errors in the future.

7. On the reactionary idea of the "biclassist workers' and peasants' parties
" for the Orient.

The lessons of the second Chinese revolution are
teachings for the entire Communist International, but
above all for the countries of the East.

All the arguments presented in defense of the
Menshevik line in the Chinese revolution should, if taken
seriously, have three times more force when applied to India. The
yoke of imperialism there, in that classic colony, takes
infinitely more direct and concrete forms than in China. The
vestiges of feudal relations, that is to say, of serfdom, are
in India incomparably deeper and more considerable.

Nevertheless (and to speak more precisely, precisely for
this reason), the methods applied in China, which ruined
the revolution, will have even more
disastrous consequences in India. Only an immense and indomitable movement of the
popular masses, which, by virtue of its very scope and
indomitable character, its goals and its international ties
, cannot tolerate in its leadership any half-measures,
any compromises, any opportunism, will be able to overthrow
the Indian gentry, the Anglo-Saxon bureaucracy, and
British imperialism.

The leadership of the Communist International has already made
a number of mistakes in India. Circumstances have not yet
allowed these errors to manifest themselves on such a vast scale
as in China. It is therefore hoped that the lessons learned from the events in China will enable the leadership to correct its political course in India and other Eastern countries
in a more timely manner .

For us, the cardinal question here, as everywhere and
always, is that of the Communist Party, its complete independence, its
uncompromising class character. In this regard, the greatest
danger is the creation of so-called "workers' and
peasants' parties" in Eastern countries.

From 1924 onward, a year that would be remembered as the year of the
open revision of a whole series of Marx and
Lenin's fundamental theses, Stalin promoted the formula of "
two-class workers' and peasants' parties for the countries of the East." This was
still based on the same national yoke that served in the East as a
camouflage for opportunism, just as "stabilization
" did in the West. Telegrams from India, as well as from Japan,
where there is no national oppression, have frequently announced
interventions by
provincial "workers' and peasants' parties" during this period. They all refer to these parties as organizations
close to, and friendly with, the Comintern, almost as if they were
"its own," without, however, concretely outlining their
political profile—in short, in the way that people spoke and wrote
about the Guomindang until very recently.

Pravda was already asserting this in 1924 :

“Some indications show that the
national liberation movement in Korea is gradually taking shape
from an organizational point of view, adopting the model of creating
a workers' and peasants' party.” 229

Meanwhile, Stalin was teaching the communists of
the East :

"The Communists must move from the policy of the
national united front [...] to that of the revolutionary bloc
of workers and the petty bourgeoisie. In such countries,
this bloc can take the form of a single party, a
workers' and peasants' party, along the lines of the Guomindang." (230)

The minor "reservations" that followed concerning the autonomy
of communist parties (no doubt in line with the "autonomy"
of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale) served only
as camouflage. We are deeply convinced that the
Sixth Congress should declare that, in this area, the slightest
ambiguity is disastrous and will be rejected. This is a
completely new, utterly false, and entirely anti-
Marxist way of posing the fundamental question of the party and its
relationship to the class and the classes.

The need for the party to join the Guomindang was argued
by asserting that the latter, by its
social composition, was a party of workers and peasants, that 9/10 of the
Guomindang - this figure was repeated dozens of times -
belonged to the revolutionary tendency and were ready to
march hand in hand with the Communist Party.

Yet, at the time of the Shanghai and Wuhan coups and
afterward, these Guomindang revolutionaries, these nine-tenths, vanished
as if they had fallen into the water. No one found any
trace of them. And the theorists of class collaboration in
China—Stalin, Bukharin, and others—didn't even bother
to explain where these nine-tenths of the Guomindang members
, these nine-tenths of workers and peasants, revolutionaries,
sympathizers, entirely "his own," had gone to live ? Yet the answer to
this question is of decisive importance for understanding
the fate of all these "two-class" parties preached by Stalin and
for grasping their very idea more clearly, an idea that
takes us far back not only from the program of the
VKP (b) of 1919, but even from the Communist Manifesto
of 1847.

The question of where the famous 9/10 disappeared to will
only become clear to us if we understand the impossibility,
1° of the existence of a bi-class party, that is to say a party of
two classes simultaneously expressing two mutually exclusive historical lines
, that of the proletariat and that of the petty
bourgeoisie, 2° that one cannot found in capitalist society a
peasant party playing an independent role, that is to say expressing
the interests of the peasantry at the same time as being independent of the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Marxism has always taught, and Bolshevism has reiterated,
that the proletariat and the peasantry are distinct classes,
that it is wrong to conflate their interests in capitalist society in any way
, and that a peasant can only join
the Communist Party insofar as he shifts from the perspective
of the landowner to that of the proletariat. Under the dictatorship of the
proletariat, the alliance of workers and peasants does not invalidate
this thesis, but, in a different context, it confirms it
in other ways. If there were no distinct classes with
differing interests, there would be no question of an alliance.

This is compatible with the socialist revolution only insofar
as it is introduced within the iron framework of the
proletarian dictatorship. The existence of this dictatorship cannot be reconciled in our country
with that of a so-called peasant league, precisely
because any peasant organization "having its own value
," claiming to solve the political problems facing
the entire nation, will inevitably end up becoming an instrument
in the hands of the bourgeoisie.

The organizations that call themselves peasant parties in capitalist countries
are in reality a variety of
bourgeois parties. Any peasant who does not adopt the attitude of the proletarian
by abandoning the landowner's perspective will inevitably be
drawn into the fundamental questions
of politics by the bourgeoisie. It goes without saying that any bourgeois party that
relies, or wants to rely, on the peasants and, if possible,
on the workers, is obliged to disguise itself, that is, to wear
a combination of colors. The famous idea of
"workers' and peasants' parties" seems to have been designed specifically
to camouflage bourgeois parties that are obliged to seek support
from the peasants but are also willing to include
workers in their ranks. The Kuomintang has now entered
history as the classic example of such a party.

As is well known, bourgeois society is structured so
that the dissatisfied, deceived, and
propertyless masses are at the bottom, while the complacent swindlers are
at the top. It is according to this principle that every
bourgeois party is also established, if it is truly a party—that is, if
it encompasses the masses in sufficiently large proportions.
In a class-divided society, there is only a minority of exploiters
, swindlers, and profiteers. Therefore, every capitalist party is
obliged to reproduce and reflect, in one way or another, in
its internal relations, the relations that exist in bourgeois society
in general. In every mass bourgeois party, the
base is more democratic, more "left-wing," than the top.

This is true for the German Centre Party, for the French Radicals
, and even more so for social democracy. This explains the
tireless lamentations of Stalin, Bukharin, and others, complaining
that the "left" base of the Guomindang, its leadership, is
so naive and inexcusable. What is presented in these
bizarre lamentations as a fleeting, troublesome misunderstanding
that needed to be eliminated through organizational measures, instructions
, and circulars, is in reality the
essential characteristic of a bourgeois party, especially during a
revolutionary period.

It is from this perspective that we must judge the fundamental argument
of the authors of the Draft Program, who defended all
opportunist blocs in general, both in England and in China.
According to them, fraternization with the leadership is done exclusively
in the interest of the rank and file. As is known, the Opposition
demanded that the party break away from the Guomindang. “One wonders
why,” said Bukharin. “Because the leaders of the Guomindang
are hesitating (?). And the mass of the Guomindang, are they merely
cattle ? Since when is one decides on the attitude toward a
mass organization based on what happens in its ‘
highest sphere' (231) ?”

It seems implausible that such an argument could be
put forward in a revolutionary party. "And the mass of the Guomindang
, is it nothing but cattle ?" Bukharin asks. Certainly
, it is cattle. In every bourgeois party, the mass is
always cattle, though to varying degrees. But
surely, for us, it is not cattle ? Indeed, but
precisely for this reason, we are forbidden to push it
into the arms of the bourgeoisie by disguising the latter under the name
of the workers' and peasants' party. It is precisely for this reason that we are
forbidden to subordinate the party of the proletariat to that of the
bourgeoisie, but that, on the contrary, we must at every turn
set them against each other. The summit of the Guomindang, which
Bukharin speaks ironically of as something
secondary, is in reality the soul of the Guomindang, its social essence
.

The bourgeoisie is certainly only a "summit" within the party,
just as it is in society. But this summit is
powerful because of its capital, its knowledge, its connections, the
possibility it always has of relying on the imperialists, and
above all because of its de facto power in the state and in the army, which is
intimately linked to the leadership of the Guomindang itself.

It was he who drafted the laws against strikes, stifled
the interventions of the peasants, pushed the communists into
the shadows, allowing them, in the best case, to
constitute only a third of their party, made them swear to place
petty-bourgeois Sun Yat-senism above Marxism 232 • The
base was approaching this summit and served, like Moscow,
as a support point "on the left" while the generals, the
compradors, the imperialists supported it on its right. To
consider the Guomindang not as a bourgeois party, but
as a neutral arena in which one struggles to have the
masses on one's side, to throw the 9/10 of the "
left base" as an asset to mask the question of who is master in
the house, meant consolidating the power and strength of the "top" : it meant helping it to transform the ever-increasing
masses into "livestock" and to prepare, under the most favorable conditions in this top, the Shanghai coup.

Based on the reactionary idea of the "two-class party," Stalin
and Bukharin imagined that the communists,
along with the "leftists," would obtain a majority in the Guomindang and thereby
power in the country, since in China power was in the hands
of the Guomindang. In other words, they imagined that, through
simple re-elections at Guomindang congresses,
power would pass from the hands of the bourgeoisie to those of the
proletariat. Can one conceive of a more tender, more idealistic devotion
to "party democracy"... when it is a
bourgeois party in question ? For the army, the bureaucracy, the
press, and capital are in the hands of the bourgeoisie. It is
precisely for this reason that it also holds the reins of the
ruling party. The bourgeois "summit" tolerates, or has tolerated,
"9/10" of "leftists" (and leftists of this kind) only insofar
as they do not threaten the army, the bureaucracy,
the press, or capital. Through these powerful means, the
bourgeois summit maintains in submission not only 9/10
of the "leftist" members of the party, but the popular masses
as a whole. Now, the theory of the class bloc, the theory
of the Guomindang as a workers' and peasants' party, serves
the bourgeoisie to the best of its ability. On the other hand, when the bourgeoisie
then clashes with the masses as an enemy and attacks them with machine guns, in this
collision between two real forces, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
the famous 9/10 are not even heard to bleat. The pitiful
democratic fiction vanishes without a trace before the bloody
reality of the class struggle.

This is the true political mechanism, the only possible one
for "two-class workers' and peasants' parties in the East." There
are no others, and there will be none.

Although the idea of two-class parties cites in its explanatory memorandum
national oppression, which supposedly abrogates
Marx's doctrine of classes, we already know of such aborted
"workers and peasants" in Japan, where no
national yoke exists. But this is not enough : the matter is not limited to the
East alone. The "two-class" idea is trying to universalize itself. In this
area, the most caricatured attempt was the one
mentioned above by the CPA in supporting the
presidential candidacy of the bourgeois "antitrust" senator
LaFollette, in order to bring American farmers to the forefront of
social revolution. Pepper, the theorist of this maneuver, one of
those who assassinated the Hungarian revolution because he had
failed to notice the Hungarian peasantry, made a great effort in America, no
doubt out of a desire to compensate, to destroy the
PCA by dissolving it among the farmers. Pepper's theory
held that the super-surplus value of American capital
transforms the American proletariat into a
global labor aristocracy ; conversely, the agrarian crisis would ruin the farmers and
drive them toward socialist revolution. The party,
numbering a few thousand members, mostly immigrants,
should, according to Pepper's conception, have aligned itself with the
farmers through a bourgeois party and, after
forming a "two-class" party, ensure the socialist revolution
in the face of the passivity or neutrality of a proletariat corrupted by
super-surplus value. This delusional idea had supporters and
semi-supporters in the upper spheres of the Comintern. For
several weeks, the balance swung sometimes to one side, sometimes to
the other until finally a concession was made to the ABC of
Marxism - it was said behind the scenes "to the prejudices of Trotskyism
" - It was necessary to lasso the CP.A. from the hands of
LaFollette's party (234), which died before its founder.

Everything that the new revisionism first invents for
the East is then transported to the West. If Pepper attempted, on
the other side of the Ocean, to violate history with his
biclass party, the latest information received shows that
the undertaking carried out with the Guomindang has found imitators
in Italy, where, it seems, they are trying to impose on our party the
monstrous slogan of a “republican assembly (?) supported
(?!) by workers' and peasants' committees.” 235 In this slogan
, the spirit of Chiang Kai-shek embraces that of
Hilferding (236). Will we really come to this ?

In conclusion, we must reiterate that the idea of a
"worker and peasant" party erases from the history of Bolshevism
the entire struggle against populists, without which there would be no
Bolshevik party. What was the significance of this
historical struggle ? Lenin wrote in 1900 about the Socialist Revolutionaries
:

"The fundamental idea of their program was
by no means that there should be an 'alliance of forces' between the
proletariat and the peasantry ; but that there was no
class chasm between the two, that
a class dividing line should not be drawn between them ; that the
social-democratic conception of the petty-bourgeois character
of the peasantry, distinguishing it from the proletariat, was
radically false" (237).

In other words, the two-class party, worker and peasant, is
the cardinal idea of Russian populism. It was only by fighting against
it that the proletarian vanguard party in
peasant Russia was able to develop.

Lenin repeated, tenaciously, tirelessly, at the time of
the 1905 revolution :

“Beware of the peasantry, organize independently
of it, be ready to fight against it, insofar as
it intervenes in a reactionary or anti-
proletarian way” (238)

Lenin wrote in 1906 :

“One last piece of advice : proletarians and semi-proletarians
of the towns and countryside, organize yourselves separately.
Do not trust any small landowner, however small,
however ‘worker' [...] We fully support the
peasant movement, but we must remember that
it is the movement of another class, not the one that can
and will accomplish the socialist upheaval
” (9)

Could
the very idea of a workers' and peasants' party be condemned in a more scathing, more merciless, more murderous way ?

As for Stalin, he teaches :

“The revolutionary, anti-imperialist bloc [...] can
take, but does not always (!) necessarily (!)
take, the form of a single workers' and peasants' party, bound in
its form by a single platform.” 240 •
Lenin taught that the alliance of workers and peasants
should in no case and at no time lead to the unification
of parties. Stalin, for his part, makes only one concession to Lenin :
according to him, the class bloc must take “the form of a
single party, a workers' and peasants' party, in the style of the Guomindang
,” but this is not always obligatory. At least we should be grateful
for this caveat.

It was with the same intransigence that Lenin posed the
question at the time of the October Revolution. Generalizing
the experience of the three Russian revolutions, Lenin, from 1918 onward,
missed no opportunity to reiterate that, in a
society where capitalist relations predominate, there are two forces
that decide : the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
“If the peasant does not follow the workers, he is dragging himself along in the wake of the bourgeoisie ; there is no middle ground
and there cannot be ” (241).

Yet a "workers' and peasants' party" represents precisely
an attempt to provide a middle ground.
If the vanguard of the Russian proletariat had not opposed
the peasantry, if it had not waged a relentless struggle
against the petty-bourgeois confusion of this peasantry, it
would inevitably have dissolved itself into the
petty-bourgeois elements, through the intermediary of the sr party or some
other "two-class party," which, in turn, would inevitably have
subjected it to the leadership of the bourgeoisie. To achieve
a revolutionary alliance with the peasantry—and this is not
achieved without difficulty—the proletarian vanguard
, and through it the working class as a whole, must first
free itself from the petty-bourgeois masses ; this
can only be accomplished by educating the proletarian party in a spirit
of hardened class intransigence.

The younger the proletariat, the more recent and intimate its kinship
with the peasantry, the greater its proportion of
the population, and the more
important the struggle against any "two-class" political alchemy becomes. In the
West, the idea of a workers' and peasants' party is simply
ridiculous. In the East, it is disastrous. In China, India, and
Japan, it is the mortal enemy not only of the
proletariat's hegemony in the revolution but also of the
most basic autonomy of the proletarian vanguard. The workers'
and peasants' party can only be a base, a screen, a springboard for the
bourgeoisie.

Inevitably, on this crucial issue for
the entire East, current revisionism merely repeats the
errors of the old pre-
revolutionary social-democratic opportunism. The majority of European social-democratic leaders
considered our struggle against the Social Democrats a mistake and
insisted on merging the two parties, believing
that a worker-peasant party would be the perfect fit for the Russian "East
." Had we heeded this advice, we would never have
achieved either the alliance of workers and peasants or the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The "two-class" worker-peasant party of the Social Democrats
became, in our country—and it could not have been otherwise—an
agency of the imperialist bourgeoisie ; in other words, it tried
in vain to play the historical role that the Guomindang successfully played in a different,
"original" way, in the Chinese manner and thanks to the revisionists of
Bolshevism. Without
a merciless condemnation of the very idea of workers' and peasants' parties in the
East, there is no and there cannot be a program of
the Communist International.

8. We need to check what the Peasant International has produced

One of the main, if not the most important, accusations
leveled against the Opposition was that it had "underestimated" the
peasantry. On this point, too, life has taught us a lesson, both
domestically and internationally.
Official leaders were guilty across the board of underestimating the role
and importance of the proletariat in relation to the peasantry. One
can foresee the most serious errors in the
economic, political, and international spheres on this point.

Herein lies the basis of all the mistakes made domestically in
1923 : an underestimation of the importance, in relation to
the entire national economy and the alliance with the
peasantry, of state industry under the authority of the proletariat
that manages it. In China, the revolution was lost due to
a misunderstanding of the decisive leading role of the proletariat in the
agrarian revolution. It is from this same perspective that we must examine
and assess the activities of the Peasant International, which
from the outset was merely an experiment requiring, moreover, the
utmost circumspection and great rigor in the choice
of means and their conformity to principles : it is not difficult
to understand why.

The peasantry, by virtue of its history and
living conditions, is the least international of all classes. What
is called national distinctiveness has its principal source in the peasantry. It—and even then, only its semi-proletarian masses—
can only be drawn onto the international path under the leadership of the proletariat. Only to the extent that the native peasantry, thanks to the proletariat, wrests itself from the influence of the native bourgeoisie, and thus learns to see in the proletariat not only its ally but its guide, is it possible to lead it onto the path of international politics . As for attempts to group the peasantry of different countries into an international organization over the head of the proletariat and outside of national communist parties , they are doomed to failure from the outset and can, in the final analysis, only harm the struggle of the native proletariat to gain influence among agricultural workers and poor peasants.

Throughout both bourgeois revolutions and
counter-revolutions, from the Peasant Wars of the 15th century onward
, and even before 1942, the peasantry, represented by its
various strata, played a considerable and sometimes decisive role. However, it
never played an independent role. Directly or indirectly, the
peasantry always supported one political force against
another. But it was never itself a force
capable of resolving national political problems. In
the age of finance capital, the polarization of capitalist society
has worsened considerably compared to
previous phases of capitalist development. This means that
instead of increasing, the specific weight of the peasantry has decreased.

In any case, during the era of imperialism, the peasantry is
even less capable of pursuing an independent political line,
even on a national scale, let alone an international one
, than during the era of industrial capitalism. In the United States
today, farmers are infinitely less capable of playing
an independent political role than they were forty or fifty
years ago, as evidenced by the experience of the populist movement
,243 where they were unable to create a national party.

The brief but serious shock that affected agriculture,
following the economic decline caused by the war,
briefly fostered illusions about the role that
"peasant" parties—that is,
"pseudo-peasant" bourgeois parties demagogically opposing bourgeois parties— could play
. While it was possible, during the tumultuous
peasant unrest of the postwar years, to risk
attempting the risky experiment of the Peasant International to
explore new relationships between the proletariat and the peasantry
, between the peasantry and the bourgeoisie, it is now high time
to take stock of the five-year
Peasant International experiment, to reveal its cruelly negative aspects
, and to try to identify its positive ones.

One conclusion, at least, is indisputable. The experience
of the "peasant" parties of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania,
Yugoslavia (that is to say, of all the backward countries), the
old experience of our Socialist-Revolutionaries and the
recent experience (the blood is still hot) of the Guomindang, the
episodic experiences in the advanced capitalist countries, particularly
the LaFollette-Pepper experience in the United States - all
have demonstrated without discussion that in the era of the decline of capitalism
there is even less reason than in that of its rise to hope to see the emergence of independent, revolutionary, anti-bourgeois
peasant parties .

"The city cannot be the equal of the countryside. The
countryside cannot be the equal of the city, under the
historical conditions of this period. Inevitably, the city
draws the countryside along with it. Inevitably, the
countryside follows the city. The question is which
class of 'those of the city' will be able to draw the
countryside along with it." (244)

The peasantry will still play a decisive role in the
revolutions of the East. But this role will not be leading and will have
no intrinsic value. The poor peasants of Hubei,
Guangdong, or Bengal can play a significant role,
not only nationally but internationally. They will
only succeed if they support the workers of Shanghai, Hankou,
Canton, and Calcutta. This is the only way for the
revolutionary peasantry to break into the international arena
. The attempt to directly unite the peasant of Hubei with that
of Galicia or Dobruja, the Egyptian fellah with the farmer of the
American Far West, is futile.

But it is in the nature of politics that anything which does not
directly serve the interests of a class inevitably becomes
an instrument used for other, often completely
opposed, ends. Are there not examples of bourgeois parties,
supported by the peasantry or aspiring to do so, judging it in their interest
to take out insurance with the Peasant International,
if they could not do so with the Comintern, against the blows dealt
by the Communist Party of their country (245), just as Purcell, in the
trade union sphere, protected himself through the Anglo-Russian Committee
? If LaFollette did not seek to join
the Peasant International, this was due to the extreme weakness of the
CPA, especially since its leader at the time, Pepper, with
complete selflessness and without being asked,
nevertheless welcomed LaFollette with open arms. Already dismissed, the leader-
banker of the Croatian kulaks had felt the need, on
his path to a ministerial post, to leave
his business card with the Peasant International. The Guomindang
went much further : after securing its place in the
Peasant International and the Anti-Imperialist League, it also knocked on
the door of the Communist International and received the blessing
of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the
USSR, with one exception.

It is particularly characteristic of the
leadership's policy in recent years that, while the tendencies towards the
liquidation of the Red International of Labor Unions were very strong
his very name was struck from the statutes of the Soviet trade unions
– , if we remember correctly,
the question of what
exactly the conquests of the Peasant International consisted of was never raised in the official press.

The Sixth Congress must seriously examine the activities of
the Peasant International from the perspective of
proletarian internationalism. It is high time to take stock of this ongoing experience from a Marxist perspective . It must be incorporated,
in one form or another, into the program of the Communist International ; the current proposal makes no mention of the Peasant International's millions of members, nor even of its existence.

Is the Earth's climate... the center of the universe and the cause of everything ?

Robert Paris — 2026-06-07T04:05:00Z

It is the Earth's climate that is... the center of the universe and the cause of everything for global anthropogenic warming alarmists !

Is everything the fault of the climate (meaning carbon dioxide, CO2, which supposedly causes "anthropogenic global warming") ? This oft-repeated thesis is considered scientific. And it extends beyond the field of climatology, reaching into physics, geology, geophysics, volcanology, biology, and even history…

Thus, it was the poor management of the climate issue that caused the fall of ancient civilizations.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7854

https://www.franceinfo.fr/environnement/climat-ressources-inegalites-il-nya-jamais-un-seul-facteur-pour-expliquer-la-chute-d-une-civilisation_556937.html

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7599

But suppose someone were to explain to you that feudalism in France and the monarchy of Louis XVI didn't fall because of the French Revolution, but solely because of the climate. The same goes for the English monarchy or England's colonial domination in North America !

As for the resurgence of volcanism, we are told that it is an effect of… climate. This means that it is the heat of the atmosphere that is causing the growth of both old and new volcanoes, both terrestrial and oceanic…

It's a bit like blaming the hot air above the pan for heating the water inside, while the heat under the pan is caused by the atmosphere !

"Atmosphere ! Atmosphere ! Do I look like I have an atmosphere ?" This is a well-known line from a film that the Earth could adopt verbatim…

Planet Earth is under severe attack from capitalist activity, but pollution isn't caused by CO2 and climate change ; it's caused by cadmium, pesticides, chemicals, nuclear power, mercury, nanomaterials, nitrates, phosphates, and heavy metals that contaminate our water and food. And all these pollutants come not from so-called "climate change," but from capitalism !

Even in the atmosphere, pollutants are not carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane (greenhouse gases) but fine particles, lead, exhaust gases from diesel engines, formaldehyde, benzene, asbestos, glues and paints, etc.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_de_l%27air

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4657

It's high time we put an end to the pretension of pseudo-climate theorists (and fake environmentalists) to control everything in Earth sciences, including volcanism (claiming that volcanoes erupt more often because of climate), seismology (whether earthquakes are influenced by climate or not), plate tectonics, glaciology, geography (asserting that there is an era of anthropogenic climate degradation), paleohistory (not just paleoclimatology), marine and river sciences (which they present as puppets controlled by something called global climate), the study of living organisms (again claiming that climate governs life, while omitting the fact that the reverse is also true and that climate is far from being the only factor in control), the study of the Earth's mantle and core (claiming that climate determines magma upwelling, etc.), as well as the vagaries of ancient and modern civilizations (the supposed preeminence of climate in their rise and fall, crises and catastrophes)... And we constantly encounter the leitmotif of a single cause : climate change supposedly due to the greenhouse effect, and particularly to human-caused CO2. This assertion, though repeated a billion times, has not gained any scientific validity.

At this stage of the invasion of this topic and the brainwashing it generates, it's no longer science : it's pure propaganda ! Especially since its proponents are waging a veritable civil war against anyone who challenges them, who is vilified, denounced, ostracized, banned from publishing and receiving funding, etc. And this climate offensive is perfectly explainable, scientifically speaking (the die-hard supporters of this thesis will, of course, accuse us of conspiracy theorizing, but we could just as easily say that they are the CO2 conspiracy theorists !). It is explained by something entirely different from the actual observations. Especially since, according to these people, whether we observe warming, cooling, many or few changes, they always blame the same supposed phenomenon. However, no direct evidence supports their claims. It's merely a scientific hypothesis, which can be seriously examined, but it's not a fact. And that's the opposite of what they claim !

Molière attributed to the Diafoirus doctors the belief in the single factor "the lung ! the lung ! the lung !" Their current successors constantly shout : "The climate !" or even "the greenhouse effect !" or "CO2 !"

Yes, such a claim to explain everything by climate—from melting glaciers to the crisis of the capitalist system, including hunger, disease, poverty, wars, and migrations—does exist ! We find it every day in the media, in the mouths of governments, politicians, and even people who claim to defend the working class and revolution ! And it's absurd. Of course, climate plays a role in the lives of living beings, especially human beings, but we mustn't fall into the trap of the single-factor theory. This doesn't exist in science, history, sociology, or the study of civilizations. Even class struggle isn't the sole driving force of history. Climate doesn't have a single factor, such as temperature. It also requires air pressure, wind, oceans, and so on.

First, let's remember that "global (Earth-wide) anthropogenic (human-caused) warming caused by the atmosphere and primarily by CO2" is simply a theory, a hypothesis, and not a proven certainty. No calculation can prove that the greenhouse effect in question would be capable of warming the atmosphere to such an extent. The observed warming has been offset by cooling in other areas. The remaining warming is localized in regions where magma rises, mainly in the oceans.

Earth's volcanism and seismology are primarily driven not by the atmosphere, but by the Earth's core. And there are many reasons to believe that, far from cooling, the core is actually warming. There is no reason to think that atmospheric warming could heat the core. That would be like believing you can heat the water in a pot by heating the atmosphere above it ! It doesn't work ! It's a bit like claiming that atmospheric CO₂ heats… the Sun !

In fact, we know very little about the Earth's core (hypotheses concerning it, estimates of its temperature, shape, and functioning have changed many times), and we were too quick to dismiss the hypothesis that it is a kind of nuclear power plant capable of heating up and producing energy, not just gradually losing it. No physical law systematically contradicts the formation of such a nuclear power plant at the Earth's center. This is not enough to prove that the core is heating up, of course. It remains a hypothesis to be verified. On the other hand, the numerous manifestations of very frequent and hot magma rising from the core (volcanoes and earthquakes in particular) strongly suggest it. The extremely rapid changes observed (temperature, shape, movement, magnetism, etc.) in what we can see of the core also suggest it.

The same scientific sources that had rejected the idea of a nuclear power plant in the Earth's core also claimed that earthquakes, volcanoes, and magma upwellings were not increasing, and we are forced to acknowledge that this is no longer true.

So the climate change fanatics try to backtrack by saying that, yes, it's increasing, but it's caused by… the climate. Let's examine this argument, and first, let's read it carefully.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/la-science-cqfd/le-volcanisme-face-au-changement-climatique-1300343

https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/tribunes/planete/le-changement-climatique-aura-aussi-un-impact-sur-les-eruptions-volcaniques/

https://reporterre.net/Comment-le-changement-climatique-pourrait-reveiller-les-volcans

The first step for anyone seriously investigating the causes of global warming should be to focus on the two primary sources of heat (not the main ones, but the only ones) : the sun and the Earth's core. Other phenomena are merely ways of conserving or absorbing energy to varying degrees. Only after demonstrating that these two permanent energy sources cannot increase their energy production should one consider a greenhouse effect, that is, an increase in energy conservation. Indeed, proponents of the global warming theory do not seriously study potential increases in energy emitted by the sun or by the Earth's core.

Another point worth noting is that global warming is not at all a global phenomenon. For example, when global warming is attributed to the melting of sea ice, it is observed that this melting only occurs in areas with underlying volcanoes, and nowhere else. Therefore, the simplest cause of this melting appears to be volcanism, and not a global terrestrial phenomenon that would melt all the ice, not just that in a specific area.

It is not the climate that has caused sea levels to fall (or rise)...

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/terre-revelation-bouleversante-ce-nest-pas-climat-fait-chuter-niveau-mers-il-y-15-millions-annees-c7g3-128580/

We are told that the temperature rise is global, but the rise in sea levels is not the same everywhere…

https://www.ouest-france.fr/leditiondusoir/2022-04-26/pourquoi-le-niveau-de-la-mer-baisse-t-il-en-islande-alors-qu-il-monte-partout-dans-le-monde-36532649-1989-47f8-9afb-c40fd779ab50

The melting of glaciers is not the same everywhere either…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5443

And when temperatures drop sharply, we are told it's... because of global warming !

https://www.ouest-france.fr/leditiondusoir/2025-11-18/vers-un-gros-coup-de-froid-climatique-en-europe-voici-pourquoi-notre-continent-pourrait-basculer-dans-l-inconnu-a7e1107f-b881-4117-a8f9-16d53b149bf5

And also that global warming is… not global warming but climate disruption…

https://www.linfodurable.fr/climat/pourquoi-ne-devrait-pas-dire-rechauffement-climatique-50264

But there is also no global deregulation

https://www.climato-realistes.fr/le-dereglement-climatique-lequel/

It has been noted several times that the intergovernmental climate body (which includes scientists) called the IPCC is perfectly capable of making false statements and falsifying data.

"The IPCC took charge of the science of global warming in 1988 with its hypothesis of greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere and will have dramatic consequences for the future of humanity in the near future.

For a long time, scientists—who are not “conspiracy theorists,” and whose voices the environmental lobby refuses to give a platform to—have been challenging this, because nothing proves that CO2 produced by human activity, which, moreover, does not accumulate in the atmosphere, is the cause of global warming. What is certain, however, is that atmospheric warming, which naturally comes from the sun, undoubtedly produces CO2, a gas that is not a pollutant but a gift from heaven ! The global “energy transition” appears, under these conditions, as a monstrous waste of $100 trillion, inspired by an ideology that disregards all scientific rigor, particularly the laws of elementary physics.

https://droit.cairn.info/revue-administration-2022-1-page-91?lang=fr

In fact, the IPCC has introduced anti-scientific concepts which it then manipulates to obtain the desired result, an approach contrary to science.

https://www.climato-realistes.fr/critique-objective-du-concept-de%EF%AC%80et-de-serre/

But that's a minor detail, because the fundamental scientific approach is flawed. They decided to create a factor : global Earth temperature, which doesn't exist. Temperature is a local measurement. You can't average the lava flow from volcanoes with the ocean floor ! And that's not the only reason this recently invented parameter, which science had never recognized, is invalid.

This lack of scientific rigor deserves an explanation.

What is the goal of climatologists, the goal of governments that dishonestly and deceitfully defend the theory of anthropogenic warming…

Climatology, which had never before been at the forefront of all science, is delighted to be so, to receive unprecedented funding, and to enjoy historically high levels of attention from the public, the media, and governments. Some climatologists say : "There are exaggerations, false statements, a bit stretched compared to reality, but it's not a big deal because we'll eventually correct things, and it only underlines that it's not harmless for society to worsen pollution." That's what the UN climate expert told me.

But that's not true : the real pollution of the planet isn't CO2. Carbon dioxide isn't a pollutant. It's the essential element of life ! It doesn't hinder breathing, otherwise we wouldn't spend hours in front of a fireplace !

By positioning global warming as the primary risk to the planet and humanity, these people even manage to make people believe that pollution other than CO2 (which is not pollution) is not very dangerous and even that reducing pollution increases warming !

https://www.lumo-france.com/blog/2024/06/26/la-baisse-de-la-pollution-participe-au-rechauffement-climatique-vrai-ou-faux

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4268

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4737

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7476

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3894

As for governments, they have multiple reasons for choosing the propaganda of "the planet threatened by global warming," there are several. First, it allows them to minimize all other risks : economic collapse, the risk of war, the nuclear risk from power plants, the risk of industrial pollution, etc.

This allows us to avoid seeing that humanity is threatened with being buried by the policies of the terrified owning classes because their system is historically DEAD ! And that's why these theories are invading the field of "civilizational collapse" studies. According to them, all societal collapses are primarily based on… the Earth's climate ! In short, it was the climate that brought down the monarchy and feudalism in France ! And it was also the climate that brought down the Tsar of Russia, then the Russian bourgeoisie, and defeated the imperialist armies attempting to invade Soviet Russia ! From Easter Island to the Mayans, these people have a single interpretation that bears little resemblance to historical reality.

Secondly, instead of blaming the capitalist system of exploitation, these climate alarmist politicians blame… man…

Thirdly, these policies tell the people that if they have to sacrifice themselves, it is to save the planet and humanity !

Fourth, they claim that poor countries and suffering people owe it not to capitalism but… to global warming.

Fifth, this allows two fractions of the population to be pitted against each other on the issue of believing or not believing in global warming, claiming that only the first is scientific and the second is fascist and conspiratorial (what a fine free democratic debate !).

And, thanks to all this commotion, no one is making the basic scientific observations that indicate the Earth's core has a nuclear power plant that's heating up ! No one is discussing whether this energy source would explain everything or not. No one is examining the emergency measures for humanity in this situation…

In any case, the issue of global warming has become a political and social issue that directly concerns the proletariat, and the latter is obliged to study the reasoning used by both sides.

The opportunistic far left has aligned itself on this issue with the mainstream left and the trade unions, meaning that it too pretends to have an environmental concern that also feigns opposition to capitalism. On this point as well, there's no way to count on them to combat official propaganda.
As we have seen in the so-called "migration crisis", "energy crisis", "terrorist crisis" and "covid pandemic", the first victim of the ruling classes is... the truth !

Let us state it loud and clear : the ills of the planet and of humanity stem entirely from the fall of capitalism, which has become a system incapable of functioning and lasting any longer.

They do not originate from CO2, nor from warming, whether anthropogenic or not, nor from the climate…

References :

It must be said, there is a bias at play : a refusal to see, to hear, to know, to acknowledge the existence of core-level warming in order to claim that there is only atmospheric warming, or climate change, due primarily to CO2 gas. Yet, carbon dioxide is hardly the most obvious candidate to explain volcanoes, earthquakes, and the upwelling of magma and other materials from the Earth's core ! The propertied classes, whose social system is in advanced decay, held together by mere strings, and whose primary function (private productive investment) is increasingly failing, find it highly advantageous to blame all ills on the criminal known as… climate or CO2, and especially on humankind (accused by the term "anthropogenic") ! Humankind is supposedly responsible for hunger, poverty, migration, wars, racism, and violence of all kinds, and not… capitalism ! The issue of "global warming" is therefore directly related to the fact that revolts and revolutions are spreading throughout the world, and so are counter-revolutions. The climate cause, a false form of environmentalism, is thus exploited by counter-revolutionaries… It is also worth noting that pro-capitalist anti-climate activists don't mention the Earth's core at all, nor do their supposed adversaries.

Is there a scientific model that would allow us to think of the Earth's core as a source of heat and not just as a hot center initially and cooling down ?

In short, do we have serious reasons to believe in the existence of an Earth's core functioning like a nuclear power plant that produces energy and does not just cool down ?

It has been cooling for 4.5 billion years and is producing increasingly intense surface effects ? We are even told that it is cooling faster than previously thought…

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/terre-centre-terre-refroidit-plus-rapidement-quon-ne-pensait-96112/

https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-60246173

Jean Marc Frenove, energy specialist at Mines Paris Tech, writes :

"There is a gigantic nuclear reaction taking place at the center of the Earth."

https://fr.quora.com/Comment-se-fait-il-que-le-noyau-de-la-terre-reste-chaud-en-permanence

"The decay of uranium-238, thorium-232, and potassium-40, and their decay products such as radium, produces 24 terawatts of power, the equivalent of 24,000 nuclear power plants or twice the amount of energy consumed by humankind."

https://drgoulu.com/2013/11/03/la-radioactivite-naturelle/#.Wtoro586_Z8

Marvin Herndon proposes a theory : the Earth's core is actually a vast, natural uranium nuclear reactor, 8 km in diameter. Chain reactions of atomic fission, a source of significant heat energy, would occur there. Since 1993, this Californian geophysicist has been developing his audacious idea based on a discovery made in 1972 in Gabon. In mines, French researchers found radioactive elements resulting from natural nuclear fission reactions, not induced ones like those in nuclear power plants. If such a natural phenomenon is possible on the Earth's surface, why wouldn't it be possible at its center ?

https://en-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/J._Marvin_Herndon?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

https://www-jstage-jst-go-jp.translate.goog/article/jgg1949/45/5/45_5_423/_article?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

https://arxiv-org.translate.goog/abs/0707.2850?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

https://www-sciencedirect-com.translate.goog/science/article/abs/pii/S0031920197000769?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

The scientific community largely refutes this hypothesis, arguing that it is "not necessary," or that the conditions for such a "georeactor" to function are far from guaranteed. Rob de Meijer, however, is not so categorical. He even proposes to verify it experimentally.
"All theories about the Earth's center are just hypotheses," reminds this professor from the University of Groningen (Netherlands). "Herndon's, like the others, deserves to be explored."

https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/mysteres-physique-6-coeur-terre-terra-incognita?srsltid=AfmBOorpAZNcuTPX6a4cIWYOP2ki0nkjoFuI83_fSgU49sRZQfzg7u01

https://arxiv-org.translate.goog/abs/0901.4509?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

Why does the hypothesis of a core being heated by a natural nuclear power plant fit observations better than that of a core being cooled ?

Well, a cooling core would become less and less fluid, more and more solid, no longer changing shape, sending less and less material from the core to the Earth's surface, not changing its rotation speed, no longer allowing the production of volcanoes, earthquakes, magma upwellings (in the mantle as well as on the surface) etc. and it is quite the opposite that we observe.

As for the theory of the greenhouse effect warming the Earth globally, it doesn't align with observations. We observe that volcanic and seismic zones are warming while others are not, meaning the warming is not global but local. We also observe that glaciers are warming and melting from below, not from above, from the subsoil and not from the atmosphere—that is, from internal heat and not from heat originating from climate.

Forget greenhouse gases for global warming : these ancient ice cores prove it…

https://sciencepost.fr/oubliez-les-gaz-a-effet-de-serre-ces-carottes-de-glace-anciennes-revelent-quun-autre-facteur-etait-a-lorigine-des-changements-climatiques/

https://sciencepost.fr/cette-carotte-de-glace-antarctique-vieille-de-5-millions-dannees-contient-un-air-du-passe-et-des-secrets-climatiques-inattendus/

Very old ice cores are raising questions for climatologists.

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/ecologie/230526/de-mysterieuses-carottes-de-glace-interrogent-les-climatologues

We observe that volcanic and seismic zones are warming while others are not, indicating that the warming is therefore not global but local. We also observe that glaciers are warming and melting from below, not from above, from the subsoil and not from the atmosphere, thus from internal heat and not from heat of climatic origin.

Scientists, even those who support the greenhouse effect theory, acknowledge that the locally measured warming is too significant to be explained by the greenhouse effect, which only retains a small amount of solar radiation energy. If the greenhouse effect were so effective locally, we could build large power plants simply by constructing… greenhouses to trap atmospheric heat ! Conversely, the energy source currently being developed is geothermal energy, which harnesses heat from the Earth's core.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4338

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article57

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7336

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5503

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4142

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3234

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article647

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3894

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4657

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1636

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7554

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7711

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5721

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4906

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5529

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5435

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5075

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7568

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3893

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7018

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5565

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3898

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article57

The State is using its "scientists" (technocrats) to deny the rise, which is visible to the naked eye, of earthquakes, volcanoes and ground-level manifestations of subsurface energy coming from the Earth's core.

https://www.lepoint.fr/sciences-nature/non-l-activite-volcanique-sur-terre-na-pas-augmente-21-01-2022-2461424_1924.php

https://lactualite.com/sante-et-science/y-a-t-il-de-plus-en-plus-de-seismes/

https://seismologie.be/fr/foire-aux-questions/plus-de-seismes-aujourd-hui-qu-avant

Yes, it is visible to the naked eye that there is more activity underground…

https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/international/article/apres-le-seisme-en-russie-le-volcan-klioutchevskoi-entre-en-eruption_253129.html

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/terre-seisme-birmanie-images-incroyables-sol-decale-plusieurs-metres-vu-espace-120860/

And the scientists themselves say they are astonished…

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinfo/podcasts/le-billet-sciences/activite-tectonique-ou-volcanique-l-impressionnante-serie-de-seismes-sur-l-ile-de-santorin-intrigue-les-scientifiques-7011291

https://www.nationalgeographic.fr/sciences/article/geologie-questce-qui-a-provoque-le-seisme-en-russie-tsunami

https://www.science-et-vie.com/nature-et-environnement/volcanologie/eruption-imminente-les-scientifiques-surpris-apres-avoir-decouvert-une-calotte-magmatique-sous-le-yellowstone-197823.html

https://www.ouest-france.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/des-seismes-et-du-magma-detectes-pour-la-premiere-fois-sous-les-volcans-dauvergne-12939416-66de-11f0-bb8e-c5b2af864a8a

And when these scientists (actually state officials) can't deny it, they claim it's due to… the climate…

https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/tribunes/planete/le-changement-climatique-entrainera-une-augmentation-des-seismes/

Volcanism is not a victim of climate but a major player in Earth's history…

https://planet-terre.ens-lyon.fr/ressource/volcanisme-histoire-Terre.xml

https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/utls/la-diversite-de-la-vie/volcanisme-et-evolution-de-la-vie-sur-terre

Sea levels are not solely linked to climate, contrary to what is often claimed…

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/terre-il-y-15-millions-annees-niveau-oceans-etait-beaucoup-plus-bas-ce-nest-pas-qua-cause-climat-120087/

There is no climate disruption

https://www.climato-realistes.fr/le-dereglement-climatique-lequel/

The Earth is behaving in the opposite way to what the theories of "anthropogenic global warming" predicted.

https://sciencepost.fr/contre-toute-attente-lamazonie-fait-exactement-linverse-de-ce-que-predisaient-les-climatologues/

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/breves/rechauffement-climatique-hier-ete-journee-plus-extreme-histoire-climatique-mondiale-pendant-nord-brule-sud-sous-neige-10736/

https://www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2025/07/04/en-argentine-au-chili-et-en-uruguay-une-vague-de-froid-inedite-cause-la-mort-de-15-personnes-et-des-coupures-d-energie_6618112_1652612.html

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5382

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/mer-toute-attente-glace-reprend-terrain-antarctique-explications-121716/

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/climatologie-deserts-sont-ils-train-verdir-46864/

https://www.climato-realistes.fr/evolution-du-climat-verites-indesirables/

https://www.lepoint.fr/debats/les-predictions-climatiques-sont-absurdes-08-10-2013-1740365_2.php

https://fr.deepskyclimate.com/blog/what-if-our-climate-models-are-flawed

https://contrepoints.org/les-12-mensonges-du-giec-de-christian-gerondeau/

https://www.science-climat-energie.be/2023/03/30/mathematiquement-le-giec-a-tout-faux/

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve198

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5443

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article535

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7877

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5748

https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/paris_75056/meteo-glaciale-a-paris-un-froid-jamais-vu-dans-la-capitale-depuis-quarante-ans_63213049.html

The planet Earth was not initially formed by climate (that is, the atmosphere) but by volcanoes…

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/geologie-surprise-volcans-aurait-rendu-atmosphere-terre-respirable-120294/

https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/tectonique-plaques-si-terre-habitable-serait-ce-grace-volcans-68064/

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3898

https://www.science-et-vie.com/science-et-culture/notre-espece-sest-forgee-dans-la-plus-grande-eruption-volcanique-de-lhistoire-212277.html
Is it the "climate crisis" that is producing the new world hunger crisis, or is it the crisis of capitalism having reached its ultimate stage ?

A new peak in world hunger is what occurred in 2008, even though the means to produce food for the entire planet's population have never been greater… in technical terms, but not in terms of social systems. Politicians, the media, governments, and even some scientists blame the climate, incriminating global warming supposedly caused by excess atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is accused of generating an excessive greenhouse effect and therefore more heat.

So, if we believe them, capitalism isn't to blame for the current global hunger crisis, but… the climate ! The IPCC (or IPCC in English), an international, governmental rather than scientific body, has just doubled down on this assertion. And, all over the world, they're trying to convince us that all the current catastrophes—economic, social, and political—from the collapse of economies in South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, to dictatorships and terrorism, to migrants and the far right, are all due to human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming.

In 2017, global hunger increased for the third consecutive year, according to five United Nations agencies. They blame "climate variability" and consider it one of the "main causes of the world's severe food crises." In 2017, 821 million people worldwide suffered from chronic food insecurity, compared to 804 million in 2016, and fewer than 793 million in 2007. In ten years, the number of malnutrition victims has increased by 28 million. Coincidentally, the 2008 food riots demonstrated that this year marked a turning point in the resurgence of global famine ! 2008 is the key date of the economic crisis, not the climate crisis ! And the increase continued in 2018… Because the global crisis wasn't resolved in 2008, but merely postponed by artificial methods which, far from addressing the fundamental issue raised at the beginning of the 2000s, only exacerbated it : the extraordinary amount of floating capital that cannot be invested profitably in production and is instead used for speculation. Indeed, government and central bank aid only increased the available funds and the opportunities to speculate on debt by adding government debt to private debt. It should be noted that the temperature rise claimed by the IPCC did not begin in 2008, and most climatologists see it as a period of temporary temperature decrease…

Is hunger caused by the greenhouse effect and not by the strangling effect of big capital on the people ? We are now told that previous famines were due to slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, but this time, they assert, with their hearts (or rather, their wallets) on their sleeves, that it is not the social and political system that is to blame for the coming deaths from starvation… So they declare capitalism “not guilty,” and we are supposed to take their word for it ?!

Global warming, and its cause CO2, thus becomes the camouflage for capitalism's new crimes against humanity.

Of course, some might say to us : "But no ! We didn't say that capitalism and governments aren't responsible, but only that everyone is, including and first and foremost all individuals who can contribute, through their waste and vehicles in particular, to this carbon dioxide pollution that harms the planet and causes, among other things, hunger, migration, and other disasters."

Are we all therefore guilty of both world hunger and the violence and misery that drive people to migrate en masse ?

On the other hand, the nuclear industry is supposedly virtuous, since it supposedly emits no CO² and has "only" some radioactive waste when it doesn't have a serious accident like Fukushima. The automotive industry has also supposedly become virtuous, despite Dieselgate, since it's turning to clean, electric vehicles. As if electric batteries were clean ! As if polluted cities were polluted by carbon dioxide and as if carbon dioxide were the cause of the large number of illnesses and deaths due to air pollution !

This whole climate change charade used to explain the catastrophes of capitalism, including the new global famine, is a massive lie. In fact, climate has nothing to do with it : poor countries suffering from drought are just as affected as countries experiencing storms or those with a moderate climate, and the same is true for so-called emerging countries that are relapsing into economic decline. Those experiencing historic cold spells in the Southern Hemisphere are just as affected as those experiencing hot summers in the Northern Hemisphere !

Both hot and humid and cold and dry are being plundered by corporations, and this has been the case since the catastrophic collapse of capitalism in 2007-2008, but more so than ever before. Formerly colonized countries are on the verge of being recolonized under the pretext of fighting terrorism, with neo-colonial armies taking it upon themselves to intervene constantly, with or without the consent of the country's leaders.

Is it due to climate change that former colonial countries are once again being plundered, once again victims of wars under various pretexts, supposedly to save the people ? Are these wars, which have destroyed entire countries, which have forced people to flee, to become migrants, rejected here and there, a product of global warming ? Is it CO2 that causes the rise of dictatorships, fascism, and violence of all kinds against the people ?!!!

Emerging countries are not collapsing because of climate change, but because of the global economic crisis. Rich countries are not attacking social rights, healthcare, social welfare, and public services because of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels ! Capitalist exploitation is becoming increasingly harsh worldwide, and this is not due to rising temperatures, but to the escalating violence of the owning classes in the class struggle. The global rise in persistent mass unemployment is also not a product of climate change. Half a degree more or less does not cause factories to close, nor does it drive capital toward speculation rather than productive investment !

In fact, the curve of world hunger follows exactly that of the historical crisis of the capitalist system which began in the early 2000s, threatened to produce a global collapse in 2007-2008, and was only delayed, with an increase in all the red lights produced precisely by public actions to avoid, or rather only delay, the definitive fall of the system.

World hunger follows the same trajectory as the economy, investment, unemployment, poverty, health, education, personal security, disease, wars, and terrorism—all products of the same cause : the agony of capitalism, having reached its limits and incapable of going any further and sustaining human society. This is the source of the agony of most of the planet, even if hunger remains marginal in the wealthiest, minority segment.

Even in Europe, the USA, and Japan, hunger is starting to strike again, in the same way that diseases of poverty that had long since disappeared are reappearing.

Capitalist barbarity is striking the entire world, with a face that is not only the far right, violent xenophobic barbarity, interethnic, interreligious, interracial, intergender, intergenerational, and other forms of conflict. It also has the face of resurgent dictatorships, escalating wars, and the resurgence of hunger.

Yes, it is indeed capitalism that produces the increase in hunger. If we have the technical capacity to feed three times the world's population and yet we don't feed all of them, it's because the dominant social system doesn't allow it. It is the social system that prevents unsold goods from being given to the poorest. It is the social system that mandates the daily burning of food stocks. It is the social system that dictates the accumulation of wealth at one end of the spectrum and misery at the other. And it is the social system, particularly capitalist trusts, that organizes global poverty, even if they try to pull the wool over our eyes with their cloud of carbon dioxide.

The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France

Alex, Waraa — 2026-06-06T04:10:00Z

The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France.

The attacks of April 25 in Mali

Although it didn't make the headlines, labor activists couldn't miss the news about the crimes of the armed gangs operating in Mali, with the blessing of French imperialism :

On Saturday, April 25, Mali was the scene of coordinated attacks of unprecedented scale in recent years. Perpetrated by the jihadists of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and by the Tuareg separatist movement of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), they simultaneously targeted Kidal, Gao, Sévaré, Mopti, Bamako and Kati - a strategic location for the Malian military authorities in the suburbs of the capital.

JNIM also claimed responsibility for the attacks on Bamako's Modibo Keïta International Airport, the residence of junta leader Assimi Goïta, who was evacuated from Kati to a safe location, and the residence of Defense Minister Sadio Camara. Camara was targeted in a suicide truck attack.

Launched at dawn, the attacks lasted several hours. "Yesterday was truly terrifying, we were terrified," confided a resident of the capital contacted by RFI's Fulfulde-Mandenkan service. "We were woken up by heavy weapons fire, and then, after an hour of gunfire, we realized it was a terrorist attack. It all started around 6:00 a.m. and continued into the afternoon. The army reacted quickly, as it was able to repel the terrorists rapidly," he continued.

RFI, April 26

The magazine Jeune Afrique announces the death of Minister Sadio Camara :

Mali's defense minister, a co-author of the 2020 coup that brought Assimi Goïta's junta to power, was killed in an attack on his home on April 25. With his death, Bamako loses the man who had established himself as the principal architect of the country's military strategy against armed groups.

The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) had never before officially declared their alliance. They finally chose to do so on April 25, jointly launching an unprecedented offensive on several major Malian cities.

Mali : Sadio Camara, the man who believed in the Russians

Behind the struggles between the Hu-Pei-Fu and Djan-So-Lin

Were French units or agents involved in the April clashes in Mali ? In any case, French imperialism is a historical player in the region, and imperialism is the financial capital of multinational corporations. Searching for names and photos of French agents is useful, but it doesn't change the fact that rivalries between competing imperialisms determine these local African conflicts. This is how revolutionaries have analyzed wars in imperialist-dominated countries like Mali for over 100 years, and no other way.

The need to organize an anti-imperialist front is further dictated by the permanent and uninterrupted growth of imperialist rivalries. These rivalries are currently so intense that a new world war, with the Pacific Ocean as its arena, is inevitable unless international revolution prevents it.

The Washington Conference was an attempt to avert this danger, but in reality, it only deepened and exacerbated the contradictions of imperialism. The recent struggle between Hu-Pei-Fu and Djan-So-Lin in China is a direct consequence of the failure of Japanese and Anglo-American capitalism to align their interests with Washington.

General Theses on the Eastern Question (1922)

What we are witnessing in Mali is a struggle of the type between the Hu-Peï-Fu and the Djan-So-Lin, whether French units are present or not !

French imperialism is behind these attacks.

It is no secret that French imperialism has been intervening in Mali for over a century, taking on forms ranging from colonial to neo-colonial. The media, mouthpieces of French imperialism, acknowledge this involvement behind their convoluted rhetoric.

Mali : France's embarrassment in the face of the crisis

While the military in power, allied with Russia, are openly anti-French, Paris is discreetly observing the advance of the jihadists and Tuareg separatists.
It took three days and two nights for France to officially react to the unprecedented jihadist offensive in Mali—an abnormally long delay by diplomatic standards. Just hours after the attacks by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and their separatist allies in the north against several Malian towns on Saturday, April 25, which enabled them to seize Kidal and profoundly destabilize the ruling junta, condemnations had already poured in from all quarters.

From Russia, which supports the authorities in Bamako, for whom Moscow has deployed some 2,000 paramilitaries, to the United States, which has both expressed its "solidarity" with the Malian people, from the African Union to the United Nations… The major geopolitical players have condemned the attacks by terrorist groups and have expressed concern about the danger they pose to the country.

As its silence raised more and more questions, France finally spoke out on Monday evening, April 27 : in a minimalist statement, it emphasized "its concern and solidarity with" the Malians.

Le Monde, April 28

The two pan-Africanist demonstrations in Mali on May 2nd, boycotted by the social-patriots of May 1st

On May 2nd, Malians in France, through various Malian organizations, called for two opposing demonstrations : one at 2 pm in Duroc, the other at 3 pm in République. In short : the first was anti-French imperialism, the second pro-French imperialism.

The place of revolutionary Marxists was in Duroc on May 2nd, alongside Malians denouncing the massacres taking place in their country. The utter corruption of left-wing and far-left political and trade union organizations, from the Socialist Party to the CGT, Workers' Struggle, and the NPA, is evident in their absence from these two Malian demonstrations on May 2nd. The "white line" (the term is apt) of the Sacred Union is insurmountable for these organizations, including Workers' Struggle, Permanent Revolution, and the NPA. These organizations, along with the CGT, are telling Malians : have no hope, demonstrate amongst yourselves ; the French labor movement has been pro-imperialist since 1914, and it still is. The "blacks" whom Malcolm X called "parlor figures," like the singer Aya Nakamura and the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis, were also absent.

Two or three anti-imperialist "whites" represented the revolutionary wing of the workers' movement : Yellow Vests and a revolutionary trade unionist with a CGT flag, the only trade union flag present, highlighting the corruption of the French trade union movement, first and foremost the CGT and SUD, which claim to be the most radical.

In Duroc, the demonstration towards the Malian embassy was banned. The protesters were trapped on the sidewalk by police vans, pressed into a veritable kettle, while the sun beat down on the asphalt. The pan-Africanist organizers made the mistake of allowing those they had called upon to demonstrate to be treated like cattle, and even thanked the police for "protecting" them. Yes, the pan-Africanists are, at heart, petty bourgeois and pro-imperialist, but only the wing of the labor movement that stands alongside them to denounce the crimes of French imperialism in Mali will be able to expose them to the Malians demonstrating behind them.

At République, there was no police cordon in sight ; the demonstrators were enjoying the favor of the French state. Plainclothes police officers even grumbled under their breath, noticing that the organizers had hung portraits of their election candidate on the statue, despite being forbidden to do so. They seemed to have received instructions : do not intervene at République, but crack down at Duroc.

The strike at 65 Boulevard de Strasbourg

The fact that the opportunistic far left was absent from the May 2nd demonstrations, purely out of submission to the bourgeois leadership of the unions, is illustrated by their similar absence from the purely economic strike at the hair salon in the 10th arrondissement. This salon, located at 65 Boulevard de Strasbourg, is decked out in CGT (General Confederation of Labour) colors. The strikers (4 men and 9 women) are being used as pawns by the CGT, whose aim is to obtain a court ruling that will mention the "trafficking" of workers. This will allow the CGT to have a seat at the conferences of UN-linked union bodies, organized in large international hotels on this very subject. This is the CGT's sole objective. Dozens of hair salons in this neighborhood practice this overexploitation of workers, but the fact that African bosses are exploiting African workers, with the blessing of the left that governs the 10th arrondissement, runs counter to the "anti-racist" ideology that the bourgeois left uses to ward off any class struggle.

On this May 2nd, 2026, two economic and political struggles of African workers were underway, separate, divided, and stifled by pro-imperialist French organizations and falsely anti-imperialist pan-Africanist organizations. The role of Marxist revolutionaries lies in both of these struggles.

It is on these two grounds that the revolutionary activists present can combat these bourgeois currents of the workers' movement and internationalism.

The French far left denies imperialism in order to rally to it.

The first obvious flaw of political and trade union movements claiming to represent the working class in France, while sporting a left-wing or far-left electoral label, is their failure to recognize the difference between Mali and France from the perspective of imperialism. Otherwise, these organizations would have demonstrated on May 2nd.
A party with a Marxist program must remember today that Lenin and Trotsky asserted :

In accordance with its essential aim - the struggle against bourgeois democracy, whose hypocrisy must be unmasked - the Communist Party, conscious interpreter of the proletariat in its struggle against the yoke of the bourgeoisie, must consider as forming the keystone of the national question, not abstract and formal principles, but :
(...) the equally clear and precise division of oppressed, dependent, protected - and oppressive and exploiting nations, enjoying all rights, contrary to the bourgeois and democratic hypocrisy which carefully conceals the enslavement (characteristic of the era of the finance capital of imperialism) by the financial and colonizing power, of the vast majority of the world's population to a minority of rich capitalist countries.

It is not only states that are imperialist or not, it is the entire nation united behind them.

No, not all workers have exactly the same interests

Let us recall the basics of the Leninist doctrine of imperialism :

Is the actual situation of workers identical, from the point of view of the national question, depending on whether they belong to oppressive nations or oppressed nations ?

No, it is not identical.

1) Economically, the difference is that parts of the working class in oppressive countries benefit from the crumbs of excess profit made by the bourgeoisie of oppressive nations by exploiting the workers of oppressed nations twice over. Furthermore, economic data shows that the percentage of workers rising to the "master class" is higher among workers in oppressive nations than among those in oppressed nations, and that a greater percentage of the former rise to the level of the labor aristocracy. This is a fact. The workers of the oppressive nation are, to a certain extent, complicit with their bourgeoisie in the latter's plundering of the workers (and the mass of the population) of the oppressed nation.

2) Politically, the difference is that workers in oppressive nations occupy a privileged position in a whole range of areas of political life, compared to workers in the oppressed nation.

3) Ideologically or spiritually, the difference is that the workers of oppressive nations are always educated, both through schooling and through life, to despise or disdain the workers of oppressed nations. This is what, for example, every Great Russian who grew up or lived among Great Russians has experienced.

Lenin (1916) Works, Volume 23

Let's replace "Great Russian" with "French," and Lenin's terms still hold true. And Lenin concluded : "We demand first and foremost from the workers of oppressed nations something different—this concerns only the national question—than what we demand from the workers of oppressive nations."
Yes, we used the grandiloquent term "Leninist doctrine," which may seem rather pompous. It is because it is behind this kind of label, "Trotskyism," that the bourgeoisie promotes in its media currents that do not actually adopt Lenin's ideas on imperialism, while pretending to do so. The Trotskyists of BFM and Lutte Ouvrière have nothing to do with true Trotskyism. These fake Trotskyists claim that the European working-class aristocracy is the same working class as the proletarians of the Third World, exploited by their own bourgeoisie, but also by our imperialist bourgeoisie.

The proletariat will only stop imperialist wars by transforming them into civil war.

Faced with the impending "war," no party took up the idea that the working class should not wait for the imperialist bourgeoisie to provoke a 1914, which would then lead to a 1917. Even before 1914, at the congresses of the Second International, its left wing led the propaganda campaign about the war. No far-left party popularized among the proletariat the ideas defended by Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg, and Lenin.

The bourgeoisie deceives the masses by disguising imperialist brigandage under the old ideology of "national war." The proletariat denounces this deception by proclaiming the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war. This is precisely the slogan indicated by the Stuttgart and Basel resolutions, which envisioned not war in general, but the current war, and spoke not of "defending the fatherland," but of "hastening the fall of capitalist domination," of using the crisis brought about by the war for this purpose, of following the example of the Commune. The Commune was the transformation of a people's war into a civil war. (...) Refusal of military service, strikes against the war, etc., are nothing but pure folly, a miserable and fearful dream of a struggle without weapons against the armed bourgeoisie, a wish for the destruction of capitalism without one or more bitter civil wars. In the army, too, a socialist has a duty to be a propagandist for the class struggle ; action aimed at transforming the war of peoples into a civil war is the only socialist action in this era of armed imperialist conflict between the bourgeoisies of all nations. Down with the naive sentimentality of pious wishes about "peace at any price" ! Let us raise the banner of civil war !

Lenin (1914) , Works, Volume 21

Conclusion

The economic and political struggles led by the African proletariat in France are taking place right now. The May 2nd demonstrations in Mali, the hairdresser's strike suppressed by the CGT union, are opportunities, on a small scale, to build the party of the world socialist revolution. Any party in France that misses such small-scale opportunities will be absent from the large-scale opportunities that imperialist wars will offer. Any group of activists, however small, that lays the groundwork will acquire the capacity to lead large-scale struggles. It is not "anti-racist" parades that will tear down the walls between the proletariats of different nations, but a united anti-imperialist front, combined with the struggle against the French and African bosses who rule over the African proletariat in France.
Messages

1. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 15, 6:47 AM , by Karim

Mali : The government in Bamako is surrounded…

https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20260507-mali-combats-en-vue-dans-la-r%C3%A9gion-de-kidal-durcissement-du-blocus-jihadiste-sur-bamako

https://www.europe1.fr/international/derriere-la-crise-malienne-le-desaveu-pour-les-forces-russes-en-afrique-871709

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/geopolitique/geopolitique-du-mardi-11-novembre-2025-9114290

This is not the Tuareg people against the Malian people, but once again one imperialism against another : France against Russia !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8759

2. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 18, 5:33 AM , by Murielle

Although it has left Mali, France is providing operational support to Ukrainian soldiers on the ground, former members of the Foreign Legion, who are cooperating with the Tuareg rebels.

https://www.rtl.fr/actu/international/comment-la-france-chassee-du-mali-combat-indirectement-la-junte-au-pouvoir-et-ses-soutiens-russes-via-des-militaires-ukrainiens-7900632677

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa8l286

In fact, French imperialism is manipulating not only Ukrainian troops but also Tuareg troops ! And it's playing with jihadist terrorism...

3. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 19, 10:15 , by Karim

Yes indeed ! France is manipulating the Ukrainian army and the Tuareg army of the Sahel, allied with jihadists, against the anti-French Malian military regime !

French troops have officially withdrawn from the Sahel, but they are not far away, particularly in Mauritania and Nigeria, ready to resume their military occupation of the region as soon as the alliance between Tuaregs and jihadists destabilizes the Malian regime...

https://vpk-name.translate.goog/en/1124147_ukrainians-have-become-frances-consumables-in-africa.html?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

4. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 21, 6:37 PM , by Alex

The fact that the CGT's goal in the Strasbourg Boulevard strike is to put its logo in a case "against trafficking" is illustrated by the triumphalist press release (even though the struggle achieved almost nothing).

https://www.cgt.fr/actualites/france/conditions-de-travail/victoire-des-coiffeuses-du-boulevard-de-strasbourg-paris-apres-78-jours-de-greve

taken up by friends of the union leadership.

NPA-R

https://npa-revolutionnaires.org/paris-des-coiffeuses-obtiennent-leur-regularisation-apres-68-jours-de-greve/

and LO :

https://www.lutte-ouvriere.org/portail/breves/coiffeuses-paris-greve-victorieuse-194440.html

While 4 men and 9 women are on strike, they become, for LO, "the fifteen women" ! This shows the interest LO has in the African proletariat !

5. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 23, 6:41 AM , by Florent

With France's help, the war in Ukraine is being exported to Mali...

https://www.rtl.fr/actu/international/comment-la-france-chassee-du-mali-combat-indirectement-la-junte-au-pouvoir-et-ses-soutiens-russes-via-des-militaires-ukrainiens-7900632677

https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1728489/politique/mali-comment-les-tactiques-militaires-ukrainiennes-simportent-au-sahel/

https://www.facebook.com/burkinesesbarcelona/posts/les-enseignants-terroristes-ukrainiens-et-fran%C3%A7ais-op%C3%A8rent-au-mali/1521630842679799/

https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2024/10/10/dans-le-nord-du-mali-les-drones-ukrainiens-eclaircissent-l-horizon-des-rebelles_6348009_3212.html

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa8l286

It's already a world war... And French imperialism isn't the last to enter the war...

In France, neither unions, nor political parties, nor associations, nor even the far left denounce this military action by French imperialism ! Quite simply, they don't talk about it...

6. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 25, 5:32 AM , by Mina

France's involvement in the Ukrainian intervention in Mali is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal...

https://www.facebook.com/ajplusfrancais/videos/la-france-utiliserait-des-militaires-ukrainiens-comme-bras-arm%C3%A9-au-mali-pour-rep/2136179117225420/

But the left continues to support French imperialism in Mali, and the far left pretends not to know it...

https://www.facebook.com/ajplusfrancais/videos/la-france-utiliserait-des-militaires-ukrainiens-comme-bras-arm%C3%A9-au-mali-pour-rep/2136179117225420/

https://www.nouvelobs.com/idees/20251231.OBS111101/comment-francois-hollande-a-decide-de-l-intervention-francaise-au-mali-je-dois-aller-vite-j-ai-quatre-a-cinq-jours-devant-moi.html

You have to go back to 2013 to see Lutte Ouvrière denounce the French intervention in Mali...

7. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 26, 09:24 , by Karim

The French military intervention in Benin, jointly with Nigeria, to avoid a scenario like in Mali or Niger, ends with the installation of a president "friend of France" (or at least of French imperialism)

https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2025/12/15/l-intervention-de-forces-speciales-francaises-au-benin-un-tournant-dans-la-politique-africaine-de-paris_6657455_3212.html

https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20260524-au-b%C3%A9nin-romuald-wadagni-succ%C3%A8de-officiellement-%C3%A0-patrice-talon

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romuald_Wadagni

https://www.afrik.com/au-benin-macron-felicite-romuald-wadagni-et-mise-sur-la-continuite

Why is it neither possible nor desirable to avoid revolution ?

Robert Paris — 2026-06-05T03:59:00Z

Why is it neither possible nor desirable to avoid revolution ?

“At a certain stage in the evolution of the productive forces, we see the emergence of forces of production and means of commerce which, under existing conditions, only cause disasters. They are no longer forces of production, but forces of destruction… This is why every revolutionary struggle is directed against a class which has hitherto dominated… A transformation is needed that affects the mass of humanity, which can only be effected through a revolution. Consequently, revolution is necessary not only because there is no other way to overthrow the ruling class, but also because it is only through revolution that the class which takes the lead in the overthrow will succeed in ridding itself of all the old filth and making itself capable of giving society new foundations… The proletariat can only exist as a historical and world force, just as communism, that is, the product of the action of the proletariat, is conceivable only as a historical and world reality…”

Karl Marx, "The German Ideology"

“At a certain stage,” said Karl Marx, “the forces of production become forces that destroy society.” What is this stage ? It is the moment when the economic and social system reaches its limits and when the increase in wealth of the owning classes exceeds the employment capacity that capitalism offers through productive investments.

Of course, big capital has never been fully committed to the production of wealth, as a large portion of surplus value is given over to speculation and finance. But when there is less and less productive capital and more and more speculative capital, the latter then generates its own fictitious profitability, stemming primarily from the simple fact that the demand for speculative investments guarantees its profits.

One might think that capitalism has no problem with capital accumulation since it is reaching record levels in this accumulation, with large corporations and the wealthiest individuals amassing unprecedented fortunes, but… the opposite is true ! The system is in the midst of a crisis of capital overaccumulation, not that this crisis means it has less capital, but that it is more incapable than ever of finding new investments for its new capital that offer a sufficient degree of profitability.

One might think that if big capital has too much money and doesn't know what to do with it, it therefore has the means to improve the lot of the majority of the working population without effort, and... it's the opposite !

Since the early 2000s, global capitalism has seen a steady decline in private productive investment, whether in periods of so-called growth or recession. This is therefore not a cyclical but a structural, or fundamental, trend.

One might think that the collapse of 2007-2008 would clear the atmosphere, except that we actually managed to prevent the cloud from bursting and the lightning from discharging the cloud, that is to say, we managed to prevent capital from destroying failing, bankrupt companies, dragging the system towards the abyss.

If big capital has acted this way in all corners of the world, from the USA to China and from Russia to Europe via Japan, it is because it was obvious to all those holding capitalist power that, if capitalist companies were allowed to fail, the whole system would disappear forever, to the point that in a few years we would no longer even remember that it had existed, if history books did not exist…

At great expense, states and central banks bought up bankrupt trusts, toxic securities, failing banks and insurance companies, and collapsing financiers, financed them at a loss, invested against the grain in production, and, by acting in this way, they did not save the system but only delayed its collapse and definitively crippled it !!!

In 2008, the entire private sector was heavily indebted, from individuals to trusts and banks. By the end of 2008, all public institutions, including governments and central banks, had joined the ranks of those indebted !

The public imagined that all this could last forever, but big business was astonished that it had already lasted ten years !

They could reform and use this respite to find solutions, you might say ?

This would require that the causes of the crisis can be resolved within capitalism and therefore not originate from the very roots of the capitalist system.

However, the root cause of the crisis that the global system has been experiencing since the early 2000s lies in the very foundations of capitalism. As Marx said : “At a certain stage in the evolution of the forces of production, forces of production and means of commerce appear which, under existing conditions, only cause disasters. They are no longer forces of production, but forces of destruction…”

Indeed, while big capital may no longer, or increasingly less, want to invest in the production of real wealth, it also does not want to survive without receiving the income from its money, its surplus value. Even though it is impossible to extract surplus value without basing this increase in wealth on something other than the exploitation of human beings, on unpaid labor time, big capital demands, even when it is not investing in production, to receive the income from its capital !

As a result, not only does the amount of speculative capital or capital invested in debt, whether from companies, banks, individuals or states, constantly increase, and speculative income increases proportionally, but the demand for speculative investments also increases, with debt further increasing borrowing rates and therefore the profits of private lenders.

Far from reforming, big capital is increasing its predatory character on the capitalist world and diminishing more and more its wealth-producing character which had nevertheless made it successful in all periods between two economic crises.

One might think that state intervention would have consequences, by imposing conditions on subsidized capital, but this is not possible. At this stage of public financial aid, the only "solution" would be the nationalization of companies, but states serve private capital and therefore guard against any infringement on private property rights !

It is the pursuit of maximum profit that has led capitalism into this impasse. The more speculation grows, the more maximum profit becomes exclusively speculative and unproductive, and the more speculative profit increases at the expense of profit in the realm of production, regardless of the degree of exploitation of workers.

The anti-social and austerity policies, the undermining of social rights, wages and working conditions that accompany the current situation everywhere in the world are not even there to give more room for productive investment because they cannot be enough to make investing in production more profitable than speculating on public and private debts.

As for nationalizing productions that big capital turns away from, states are incapable of doing so, being first and foremost the defenders of private ownership of capitalist production.

Consequently, the merely delayed collapse situation has no way out. State and central bank interventions have only exacerbated the problem and made any intervention like the one in 2008, which aimed to save the system by depleting public funds, impossible. By temporarily halting their interventions, central banks are trying to prepare for the coming tsunami, but they are far from being able to cope.

The measures they are taking are only intended to last a few days : banks taking control of private accounts and savings, trusts taking control of wages through tax collection, etc.

The only ones who have not prepared for the economic and social tsunami that cannot be delayed indefinitely are the workers.

This is not at all surprising. Revolutionary struggle cannot anticipate the economic and social situation. Decades of reformist struggles, led by political and trade union apparatuses that accommodate themselves to capitalism, and which claim that the only prospect is to reform it, are not the sole cause of this situation.

The revolutionary consciousness of the workers cannot anticipate the situation. Workers, considered minors without rights in the entire social functioning of society, even though they theoretically have a voice through the right to vote, lack any form of organization or expression that would allow them to form their opinions, make them known, discuss them, let alone make them public or give them political weight. With the stranglehold of the union apparatus, workers' struggles themselves do not provide an opportunity for workers to express themselves, discuss, organize, or develop their own social perspectives.

Throughout the entire economic, political, and social system, workers never decide, never lead, and never have the capacity of their class to offer solutions to society as a whole. Choosing representatives of the bourgeoisie through elections cannot possibly compensate for this absence of any worker intervention in the political sphere.

Therefore, a genuine political and social uprising will be necessary for workers to regain direct participation of the working class in all decisions concerning them and also concerning the whole of society.

What characterizes a social revolution is the fact that an economic, political, and social shock jolts the exploited and oppressed out of their social, political, and organizational passivity, forcing them to act for themselves, to organize themselves, and to decide for themselves. We have seen this type of situation in all the great social revolutions throughout history.

In social revolutions, all at once, the exploited and oppressed go from a situation where they were merely working machines, beasts of burden, to situations where they collectively become a real counter-power that the owning classes mortally fear to the point of throwing themselves into the arms of violent dictatorships, fascist gangs, local, regional and world wars.

In normal times, the proletariat is the last to believe that their exploiters will no longer rule society tomorrow, being the first to suffer this capitalist direction every day and knowing that they have never managed to shake off its yoke. The petty bourgeoisie or young people sometimes have more illusions about their ability to influence the course of events, but, in fact, they don't influence it any more, and indeed the only real force that poses a threat to the capitalist class and its state power is that of the workers, even if they only become aware of it after having put it into action.

The historical crisis of capitalism has changed nothing about this long-standing state of affairs. While the bourgeois press is overflowing with articles preparing for an economic collapse, the workers' press, curiously, makes no mention of it, confining itself to demands, recriminations, and accusations against the government or the bosses, without explaining anything about the entirely new situation of the capitalist world, hanging by a thread at the edge of the abyss. No reformist organization, whether associative, political, or trade union, no organization that practices opportunism in relation to its predecessors, including all the far-left groups, all the official extreme left, is preparing the proletariat for this situation, informing them of it, or enabling workers to prepare to play their historical role in overthrowing the owning class of its economic, political, and social power, including by overthrowing state power and also by attacking the sacrosanct right of capital over the entire economy.

Some of these "left-wing" or "radical" opponents pretend to vehemently denounce capitalism, yet they refrain from giving workers the means to understand the state of the old system of exploitation, whose functioning has now been definitively reversed, transformed from the greatest productive machine in history into its most gigantic tool of destruction…

Everything that society has built up over decades is being destroyed : public health, public research, public education, all public services, from transport to energy, and this at a time when big capital is acting only as a predator, as a necrophilic force that feeds first and foremost on the fall of companies, bankruptcies, debts, economic or monetary collapses…

It is this reversal of the situation that will inevitably provoke, sooner or later, a reversal in the attitude of the workers, from a passive class to an active class, from an attribute of the system of exploitation to its destroyer. The owning classes know this and are doing everything to ensure that no class consciousness emerges from the situation for the time being. They are encouraging every possible diversion, every kind of hatred—interracial, interreligious, interethnic, inter-corporate, intersexual, and so on. And, initially, they will succeed, taking advantage of their control over political power, administrative power, media power, all the petty-bourgeois strata, and the whole of public opinion, including that of the workers.

If class consciousness is at its lowest point, if communist class consciousness seems further from emerging than ever, the owning classes know that this will not be enough to prevent the emergence of revolutionary situations. It is always at times when class consciousness was at its lowest, often in the midst of fratricidal wars where proletarians killed each other with weapons in hand instead of attacking their exploiters, that the situation has reversed and transformed from the most counter-revolutionary, warlike, dictatorial, fascist situation into the most revolutionary through a radical dialectical process that astonishes all those who are unaware that it is dialectical contradictions, and not gradual evolutions, that determine great historical changes.

Some claim that the working class can no longer change society because, particularly since the fall of the Berlin Wall and Stalinism, no one among the workers believes in their capacity to lead society—what has been called the dictatorship of the proletariat. This ignores, whether consciously or not, the fact that the revolutionary consciousness of workers is a product of revolutionary situations. Before the Paris Commune of 1871, as before the Russian, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, and German soviets of 1917–1923, or before the workers' and peasants' committees of Spain in 1936, to name but a few, workers were by no means aware of being a class of the future capable of governing and offering an alternative to capitalist society. The same is true today : it is the revolutionary situation, the one in which the capitalist class has lost its prospects, that brings the exploited class to an awareness of its strength and its role.

That is why the future belongs to the proletariat and to social revolution.

And all attempts, whether by reformists or fascist counter-revolutionaries of every stripe, to eradicate social revolution lead only to catastrophic bloodshed. Avoiding revolution, preventing workers from overthrowing the bourgeoisie, does not mean avoiding confrontations, death, and misery. We have just seen this in the "Arab Spring," where the exploited did not go all the way, not even challenging the power of the owning classes, their stranglehold on the army and on businesses in particular. If the workers' struggle develops tomorrow, in the face of capitalist economic collapse, but does not go all the way, not even to social revolution, all the horrors that the capitalist world is capable of unleashing will fall upon our heads.

That is why we must not prepare for the reform of capitalism, demand its improvement, or wish for its "sustainable" character, but, on the contrary, facilitate its fall and prepare the society of the future, one freed from private property over the whole of society by a tiny minority of less than one percent of large capitalists.

Socialism in Russia or the failure of the "new man" ?
Messages

1. Why is it neither possible nor desirable to avoid revolution ?, November 4, 2018, 6:54 AM

The threats to the collapse of capitalism are becoming clearer.

The chosen economy is declining despite government intervention. Foreign investment is falling.

German and Italian banks are revealing massive financial holes and are no longer responding favorably to stress tests. Those most at risk are : Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The insolvency of states and central banks continues to increase.

No structural measures have been taken to reform it since the 2007-2008 crisis. It is less possible than ever to take any without causing everything to collapse.

The weakest areas of the planet are already experiencing violent horrors and bloody dictatorships.

With each bad signal, stock markets fall, forcing states and central banks to intervene, increasing debt and speculation.

The countries that were called "emerging" are already falling...

Brazil, Türkiye, and Argentina are severely weakened and are sliding into poverty and violent dictatorship.

The IMF cautiously states : "Vulnerabilities continue to accumulate and the new financial system has never been tested. Further measures are needed to strengthen its resilience."

A gentle way of saying that the system is not capable of withstanding a crisis !

What if we re-examined, with a bit of hindsight, the validity of mass vaccination in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic ?

Robert Paris, Tiekoura Levi Hamed — 2026-06-04T04:02:03Z

What if we re-examined, with a bit of hindsight, the validity of mass vaccination in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic ?

First observation : currently, throughout the world, mass vaccination against Covid-19 is being abandoned by populations, governments, health institutions and the media in all countries, whereas in all countries many considered it indispensable, essential, without serious drawbacks, without any scientific objections, without obstacles, with all the advantages and only backwardness as adversaries, and that it was almost mandatory and imposed in a dictatorial manner.

However, it is absolutely impossible to say that the COVID-19 virus has completely disappeared, and no one is claiming otherwise. If it were true that the COVID-19 vaccine was effective, it would still need to be promoted and administered on a massive scale. This is especially true if the virus weakens, in order to eradicate it permanently.

Do we usually stop vaccinating during an epidemic disease when we move from pandemic to endemic ? No !

They don't even try to explain the reason for this change. They tell us they're continuing to vaccinate at-risk individuals, without providing any figures. They've completely eliminated COVID statistics, COVID information, and articles about COVID. They're now treating it with… contempt. It's essentially a way to avoid accountability and to avoid drawing any conclusions.

The governments and ruling classes have no intention whatsoever of explaining their covid policies.

Nor has Von der Leyen explained her cover-up of emails exchanged with the vaccine company Pfizer and Europe's secret contracts with Bill Gates concerning his vaccines.

And this isn't just about trade agreements. It's also about covering up blatant lies from the ruling classes regarding the effectiveness and safety of Covid vaccines.

The second point should serve precisely to assess the effectiveness of mass vaccination. Did it eliminate the disease in vaccinated individuals ? Did it prevent its spread ?

No to both questions.

How can we know ?

Well, simply because vaccinated people have often contracted the disease shortly afterward. And also because the pandemic has spread throughout the world, including countries with very high vaccination rates.

When the pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines were subsequently questioned, they replied that they had never claimed their vaccines prevented the disease in vaccinated individuals, nor that they prevented or slowed the spread of the virus, but only that they boosted immunity and reduced symptoms and severe cases. That would be something if it were true, but we'll see that this isn't what emerges from the actual assessment. No wonder they don't want to make this assessment public !

We must even recognize that it is not only governments that do not want to do this assessment : it is pharmaceutical trusts, it is the media, it is health professionals, it is associations, unions, political parties and even… the extreme left !

It must therefore be acknowledged that the only small parts of the planet that have been little or not at all affected by COVID-19 are those that are isolated and sparsely populated. Isolation is the only effective strategy against such a pandemic. The countries most severely affected have also been those with high vaccination rates, as these are wealthy countries with significant national and international trade and travel.

We can also take stock of the lies told by the ruling classes to justify their vaccination policy.

Let's look at the situation regarding the unvaccinated. It was, of course, false that all unvaccinated people were going to die. It was false that unvaccinated people were filling up hospitals and clogging them up. It was false that unvaccinated people were the cause of the continued spread of the virus. It was false that unvaccinated people were harming the health of vaccinated people. It was false that unvaccinated nurses and healthcare workers were endangering patients, particularly in hospitals. And so on…

The considerations regarding immunity were also flawed. Indeed, any proposed vaccine against a disease must be based on a scientific study of natural immunity to that disease. A vaccine's sole purpose is to artificially stimulate this natural immunity (by administering the disease, or a part of it, in some form or another).

The above can be found in all epidemiology, immunology, and vaccinology textbooks. It follows that if a disease does not elicit an immune response in humans to block it, no vaccine will be able to do so. This means that not all diseases have a vaccine, and vaccines are not always used, even when they exist. This depends on collective and individual circumstances, as well as on the specific disease and vaccine.

In any case, we were led to believe that as long as a vaccine candidate exists, it is necessarily necessary and sufficient. And that is false. Vaccines are most often insufficient to combat epidemic diseases. And sometimes, in a developed epidemic, they are not the right solution.

There are very diverse types of diseases, with very diverse types of immunity, and very diverse types of vaccines, with very diverse effects, reactions, and risks.

The mere fact that this was presented as obvious (in short, it's the pseudo-scientific discourse of "as soon as we have a vaccine, we must necessarily use it to vaccinate en masse") is already proof that we are being lied to.

Another lie, therefore, is to say that we are obliged to use the vaccine as quickly and massively as possible, without having done the trials, without carrying out checks or only minimal ones.

It's worth noting that even years later, checks are still not carried out. All the post-implementation analyses done serve only to justify the policies implemented, not to re-examine them critically and scientifically ! Yet, these policies, often completely contradictory and going in all directions, were riddled with errors, and the public isn't being told the correct facts !

For example, the pseudo-scientific discourse of officials claimed that the pandemic spread through micro-droplets (spittle and saliva) and not aerosols. And that was false : transmission occurs through aerosols !

And that changes everything ! It particularly changes the way we protect ourselves : to block aerosols, we need FFP2 masks and not other masks ; it is not enough to move away a little, etc.

From the very first day of the pandemic, governments and their so-called scientific experts lied blatantly, and these lies are sometimes forgotten because subsequent lies seemed to say the exact opposite of the previous ones…

Thus, they stated that…

… Covid was less dangerous than the flu

… Covid would not cross the border into China, and at least not into Asia, certainly not the country's border

…masks are only necessary for healthcare professionals and are even dangerous for the general public

…masks other than FFP2 are just as effective, even novelty masks

… Covid is only transmitted through droplets and not through aerosols, so distance is sufficient to protect against it.

… there is no need to interrupt international travel to block the spread and no need to medically examine passengers from countries affected by the pandemic

… sick workers do not need to stay home

…sick children can go to school

… teachers don't need masks

… no need for masks on public transport and in public places (they'll say the opposite later)

And for all these sometimes ridiculous and absurd claims, they asserted : "scientific experts are informing you," "science is speaking to you," etc. In fact, these "scientists," who were health bureaucrats, were presenting the views of the highest levels of government based on political and economic criteria that had nothing to do with health, medicine, or science.

And scientists, sometimes the same ones, would then go on to say exactly… the opposite…

They were going to justify an insanely strict lockdown when they had claimed that isolation was absolutely unnecessary… And even in the midst of a lockdown where going for a walk in the garden was forbidden, they were going to keep international flights running…

In fact, COVID-19 has turned out to be something quite different from a simple pandemic : a new form of social, political and economic catastrophe replacing the crises of capitalism and defusing the bubbles and the rise of revolts and revolutions that had been climbing dangerously since the economic collapse of 2007-2008.

After a stunning radio silence of many long months, the French government announced in April 2016 that it was reviving fear of Covid and later… the vaccination that it wanted to resume on a mass level… But this does not erase the fact that France went without vaccination for months !

Only the pharmaceutical companies that made a fortune on Covid vaccines are celebrating !

As for actual state measures to protect against Covid, they have completely disappeared : no reinforcement of hospital resources and even the opposite, masks are not mandatory anywhere, information on variants is not circulating, nor are instructions, the sick are not confined to prevent the spread, passenger arrivals at airports are not monitored, lessons from past episodes are not being learned !

This does not mean that COVID-19 had previously disappeared. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater remains higher than at the same time last season.

As of March 30, 2026, the genomic landscape in France confirms the dominance of the XFG variant, which now accounts for slightly more than 40% of the sequences studied. The NB.1.8.1 variant also remains well established, representing approximately 30% of cases. As for the BA.3.2 variant (and its sub-lineage BA.3.2.2), although its share has increased slightly to reach approximately 16% of the viruses analyzed, it remains classified as "under surveillance" by the WHO.

COVID vaccines do not prevent the disease from returning, do not prevent contagion, and do not destroy the disease within the body. They only weaken the symptoms !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7569

https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/est-ce-que-les-vaccins-empequent-la-propagation-du-covid-19_151869

And they cause diseases

https://www.allodocteurs.fr/le-vaccin-anti-covid-a-lorigine-de-plusieurs-maladies-selon-une-etude-36613.html

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1163

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6335

The vaccines didn't lie : they only claimed to achieve "herd immunity against Covid," which is a delusion !

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sr/covid-19/des-vaccins-qui-ne-bloqueraient-pas-la-transmission-du-virus-pourraient-quand-meme-enrayer-la-pandemie-20855.php

What is wrong to say about the Covid pandemic

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7717

Can we learn any lessons from the pandemic ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7379

How effective are vaccines ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6364

Vaccines that prevent transmission and spread ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7569

Vaccines that are not without effect… can cause mutations and re-emergence of the virus and produce variants…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6157

A vaccine against severe cases ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6412

Are government health policies guided by medical and scientific considerations ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6680

Vaccines that are all-benefits and safe ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6335

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1137

Did they do everything they could to help us get rid of Covid ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6896

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7512

Why is the French government campaigning more against masks for the entire population than against the coronavirus ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5838

What else could have been done and under what conditions ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8455

What conclusions can we draw three years after the start of Covid-19 ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7165

How did they lie to us about Covid ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6001

What is immunity and why can't it be manipulated with impunity ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7592

Who benefits from the Covid vaccine and the pandemic ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1099

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5943

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5984

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6136

Was it "science" that guided them ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6367

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7003

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1068&debut_breves=10

https://matierevolution.org/spip.php?article7266

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7553

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6333

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article8750

Do the statistics support their position ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6488

The pandemic is caused by the decaying state of capitalism.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6336

Why did they lie to us ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6896

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6558

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6382

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6432

The contradictions of the discourse of the vaccine dictatorship and pseudo-health

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6663

Fighting disease is not just about fighting the symptoms

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6867

Is it all the fault of the unvaccinated ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6602

Pandemic, economic and social collapse, repression, it's all connected... Strange ? Did you say strange ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5932

The most important measure in the face of Covid and the global economic and social collapse

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6092

What to do ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5871

The media are not answering the question "can mass vaccinations during a pandemic produce variants" but rather "can they produce more dangerous variants ?" A way of manipulating the answer.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/vaccin/vrai-ou-fakéles-vaccins-contrélécovid-19-risquent-ils-d-entrainer-l-apparition-dénouveaux-variants-plus-dangereux_4664781.html

https://www.who.int/fr/news-room/featurestories/detail/the-effects-of-virus-variants-on-covid-19-vaccines

https://www.senat.fr/rap/r21-659/r21-659.html
No way ! Covid isn't over ! It's just being put on hold… for the next virological war…

Covid has persisted worldwide, albeit in a relatively moderate form, with several variants that have not disappeared. It will be easy to claim that the disease has resurfaced on its own when the ruling classes so desire, due to economic and social collapse and to prevent revolutions. Covid has already had this effect in the past.

Around the world, military-linked virology labs are working on highly contagious and deadly variants of COVID-19. No wonder : they're preparing for world war with every kind of weapon imaginable, and viruses, like bacteria and chemicals, are powerful weapons. COVID-19 is a good way to kill, and the possibilities for creating variants are very easy and very lethal.

Of course, some will say, "That's conspiracy theory," implying that denouncing the conspiracies of the capitalist propertied classes is the same as the antisemitism of the "Jewish conspiracy" theory ! It's also worth remembering that, while there's no basis in the far-right myth of the Jewish conspiracy, there is a basis in the hatred of the propertied classes against the Jews of Eastern Europe, accused (rightly so this time) of siding with the proletarian revolution during the revolutionary wave that followed the First World War in Europe, particularly in Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Germany.

It is remarkable that Covid is currently persisting everywhere, but we have completely stopped truly fighting it, that we are not at all trying to eradicate it definitively, by giving ourselves the means to do so now that it is at a low level ! We want to keep it on hand as a means that we will simply activate when the time comes.