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Education, Propaganda, Agitation Post-War America and Bolshevism I: The General Problem of the Trotskyite Movement We have found it necessary to make the main item on the plenum1 agenda the organizational question. The cause is a widespread recognition of the fact that after three years of grinding work in the factories the recruiting of new members has not only been far below expectations, but from all appearances is likely to continue so. The idea that the lag in recruiting is due to the unorganized, unsystematic methods of the members has been more or less discarded. It was not a serious contribution to the question. What we are facing now and will increasingly face is the whole problem of building the mass Bolshevik party in the USA.The war in Europe is coming rapidly to an end and the whole country is aware of the tremendous social conflicts which the post-war will bring. The building of a mass party to lead the proletariat is for us the problem. This is the question I propose to discuss here, but from one aspect only, the aspect of education, propagnada, and agitation. There are others equally important. I do not propose to deal with them here. First of all I have to make it clear what is not being done in thisdocument. I am not dealing with the general problem of howa party is built. I am not touching at all upon mass trade union work except insofar as this affects or is affected by education, propaganda, and agitation. I am not dealing with the objective situation in America except insofar as it is impossible to discuss propaganda and agitation in avacuum. With this limitation constantly borne in mind, we can and must remind ourselves of what we are in general attempting to do. All studies of dialectic, of historical materialism, of political economy, of the history of the working class and of the revolutionary movementare for the most part meaningless if they do not concretely contribute to and culminate in the theoretical analysis of party building. The plain fact, too often forgotten or ignored, is that in the past fifty years only one effective Bolshevik party has been built in any of the great countries of Europe and America and for that matter anywhere. The Communist Parties from their very first days were inspired and nurtured, theoretically, organizationally, and morally by Soviet Russia. From that same source they drew their early corruption. As we look back at the catastrophes they caused, their totalitarian opposition to the simplest and most elementary doctrines of Leninism, particularly in China and Germany, it is clear that whatever was responsible, these parties were Bolshevik in name only. In the last decade and a half, except in the remote and undecisive outpost of Ceylon, the Trotskyite revolutionary movement has known nothing but failure . (Britain is a special case which will be specially dealt with at another time.) Great events have come and gone. We have made no impact on them. At times, as in France between 1934 and 1936, our theory attracted widespread notice. Solid bourgeois papers devoted articles to Trotskyism as the real danger. At the Mulhouse conference of the Social Democracy in 1935 our comrades led a powerful opposition to Blum.2 But we could do nothing effective. The great events passed us by. There is no reason at all why great events should not develop during the next few years and find us equally ineffective , left behind as before, calling other groups and parties centrist (as we justifiably called the POUM3 ), reformist, Stalinist or what not, but ourselves insignificant. There is no reason for believing that with the inevitable revolutionary upsurge of the masses, we must automatically grow until we become a large party. There was a great revolution in Spain. Every party in Spain, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, grew except the Trotskyites. As we enter the post-war period, we, as serious Marxists, must analyze these things and try to draw some lessons. Our Experiences, National and International One indispensable way of doing this is by the thorough and systematic analysis of the experiences of the Trotskyitemovementas a whole. This is no light task. But it is time to begin. I propose to begin as simply as possible, with the experiences of the Workers Party (WP) during its four years of existence , particularly the last two. In 1942, the party, taking conscious advantage of the national development, made a great step by incorporating...

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