p In the post-war period, the Trotskyites have been feverishly seeking ways to fortify their positions. They had so discredited themselves during the war that many of their organizations had disintegrated.

p This was a period during which nothing serious was said or written about Trotskyism. Now and agiain, one heard a ridiculing story about four Swiss Trotskyites all getting together for a “congress” of their organization, expelling one of them from their midst and then printing a notice in the newspaper about their congress.

p Indeed, the Trotskyites themselves admitted that their ideology, policy and the courses they followed were undergoing a very critical period which some of them obscurely termed a "stage of laboratory research.”

p It was a period of feverish trying to find ways and means of galvanizing the "Fourth International" and its affiliated sections. In the late 1950s someone came up with the suggestion that Trotskyism could make headway by relying on the peasantry in the Third World countries.

p Even some of the followers of the "Fourth International" were taken aback at the idea. After tall, Trotskyism has traditionally taken a very adverse attitude to the peasantry. The " permanent revolution" theory qualified the peasantry as a "reactionary mass" and a "counter- revolutionary force." Trotsky insisted that even if 27 the working class succeeded in “bestirring” ’the peasantry, "it would continue, in its spontaneous opposition to the old regime, to bear all the marks of economic and ideological isolation and political immaturity, cultural backwardness and helplessness, which in any movement always tend to paralyze its social energy and force it to stop at the point where real revolutionary action begins”.

p Suddenly, at the 5th Congress of the "Fourth International" in 1957, the Trotskyites declared that the national liberation movement was the key element of the world revolution and began to extol the peasantry of the Third World countries as the most revolutionary force of our day.

p The 6th Congress, four years later, declared: "For historically based reasons throughout its existence the ’Fourth International’ has developed mainly in the advanced capitalist countries which, until the beginning of the last war, it regarded as the Number One centre of the world revolution. We now have to reorganize the activity of the ’Fourth International’ as applied to the epicentre of the world revolution, the colonial revolution, and to transfer our main efforts to that area for the time being."   [27•1 

p The Trotskyites tried theoretically to back up their "new orientation" with various arguments based on history, discourse on the epicentres of world revolution, and other attributes of the “conceptual” approach.

p Actually, the Trotskyites were not at all concerned about the world revolution or the development of the national liberation movement. 28 Nor were they worried about the needs of the peasantry in the Third World countries. They had their own narrowly egoistical interests and selfish ends in mind. They declared that survival of the "Fourth International" depended on the efforts made in the Third World countries, that its "last chance" was to make headway among the peasantry.

p Hector Lucero, a leading member of the Paris Secretariat of the "South International," stressing at a meeting in December 1960 the need for the most intensive activity by Trotskyites among the peasants of Latin America, Asia and Africa, said: "Unless the ‘International’ succeeds in fulfilling this task with regard to practice, organization and action. . . it will lose its theoretical role and will become a mere keeper of the texts." The Secretariat discussed the question as to whether Trotskyism should "regroup its forces" by sending its representatives into national liberation movement areas. Some favoured a system whereby the " ‘International’ moved from place to place.”   [28•1 

p The Trotskyites tried hard to induce as many peasants as possible to side with them, but their drive was an utter flop. The peasants did not flock to the banners of the "Fourth International”.

p However, the leaders of the Trotskyite “ International” refused to become "keepers of the texts," and looked around for a "new lease on life.”

p This was soon forthcoming. In 1968, new calls 29 were issued for an urgent campaign among the student youth. A special resolution was adopted by a congress of supporters of the Paris Secretariat urging that attempts be made to make headway among the students and youth. "Work with young people and students constitutes the central task which the ‘International’ should be prepared to tackle throughout the whole period ahead." The Congress urged the sections to "mobilize their best forces for the success of this work.”   [29•1 

p Trotskyite journals, which had assured their readers that it was the peasantry of the Third World that would awaken the working class of the advanced capitalist countries, now cast the students into the role of "stimulator." The Trotskyites declared: "This student movement. . . does not express a particular phenomenon of the student sector, but the seeking for proletarian power and fundamentally the social proletarian force on which the movement supports itself, the proletariat not being able to express this same level through lack of centres and of leadership.”   [29•2 

p The present leaders of the "Fourth International" prefer not to recall Trotsky’s high- handed statements about the "inferior pnacticism of the youth." They now find much more suitable his statements made at the time when he sought to play up to the youth by setting them against the older generation.

p Indeed, the Trotskyites were clearly casting about for something to latch onto, which is the 30 case with those who have no solid social basis, who are unstable in their political sympathies (now flirting with the peasants, now with the students). This is to be expected of those who are devoid of responsibility and not bound by any commitments. They have nothing to lose, because they have nothing. It is quite possible that tomorrow they will just as easily turn away from the youth as they had turned away from the peasants of the Third World, when they found they were not getting the hoped-for results.

What, then, are the expectations of the "Fourth International" today, in assuring the youth of its strong attachment?