p Anyone encountering oral and written statements by Trotskyite “ideologists” is in for a blast of impassioned catchwords, ardent calls and trenchant slogans. One is struck by the pathos in Trotskyite "programme statements," the lack of any ideas, the frenzied appeal in place of arguments that verge on hysteria and are accompanied by crude abuse of those who disagree.

p Not long ago Trotskyite “Leftist” talk denoted a certain adaptability to the moods of certain sections of the peasantry in the Third World. How was this expressed?

p When guerrilla action broke out in some Latin American countries, the Trotskyites hastened to declare they were all for this form of struggle, thereby hoping to bolster their political positions. At every congress of the "Fourth International," from 1957 to 1968, the Trotskyites declared that they were for guerrilla warfare. It did not seem to embarrass them that Trotskyite theorists have never attached any importance to this form of struggle.

p However, the men of the "Fourth International" did not confine themselves to declaring that they supported the guerrilla movement. The laboratories of the "Fourth International" devised the tactic of "revolutionary gymnastics" based on the principle that one armed uprising should follow another no matter how ill prepared they were and unsuccessful. When the "stage of action" came, the results were not that important. .. The main thing was "permanent mobilization of the masses to attain revolutionary 47 objectives," "opening of new fronts" and a steady curtailment of "mobile columns."   [47•1 

p The guerrilla movement was deemed superior to all other forms of class action. Any fight without rifles and not in the mountains was declared to be unworthy of the youth.

p The Trotskyites tried hard to put across the idea of spontaneous action in the guerrilla movement. Through their spokesman, Blanco, the Latin American Trotskyites declared: "time for propaganda and agitation is over," "the open struggle should be initiated as quickly as possible.”   [47•2 

p There is good reason why the Trotskyites were for separatist, spontaneous action. They hoped it would be easier to put across their ideas in the guerrilla movement, if they could steer clear of action by the urban working folk and Communist party influence. They alleged that true revolutionaries would be bound to share their views. The Trotskyites urged that the guerrilla detachments should be open to all without any check-up, and those refusing to partake in their wild schemes were called enemies of the revolution.

p The Trotskyite attempts to apply their theories greatly harmed the revolutionary struggle. Thus, in 1963, they managed to provoke scattered, unprepared peasant detachments in Cuzco Department in Peru, to rise under Blanco under the slogan "Land or Death." The uprising was soon defeated by government troops, and some 200 peasants were imprisoned for taking part 48 in the guerrilla action or helping the guerrillas.

p The Trotskyites themselves, analyzing the results of this operation, admitted the "relative isolation of the action led by Blanco, who could count on the aid of only a small organization already hit by severe repressive measures.”   [48•1 

p In 1965 and 1966, Blanco’s followers once again won over a small group of peasants to their ultra-Leftist slogans and got them to set up a guerrilla detachment. The government jumped at this pretext to massacre the Leftist forces.

p The Peruvian Communist Carlos Zamora, in a letter printed in L’Humanite, wrote: "This was a pretext, because it was clear to everyone that a few dozen guerrillas, totally isolated from the people, did not present a serious threat to the government. However, the latter used the occasion to inflict a heavy blow on the Left-wing opposition as a whole. Hundreds of activists and trade-unionists, not connected with the guerrillas, were arrested.”   [48•2 

p In Latin America, it became quite obvious that the Trotskyite pseudo-Leftist conceptions led to defeats and served to divide the revolutionary forces and help the reactionaries. These "armchair revolutionaries," as the Venezuelan Communists called them, did everything possible "to push the revolutionary movement over the edge.”   [48•3 

p Exposing Trotskyite machinations in the Latin American revolutionary movement, Fidel Castro told the Tricontinental Conference at 49 Havana in January 1966 that the Trotskyites "sought to isolate this movement from the people, to isolate it from the masses and to foster absurd propositions”   [49•1 

p The Trotskyites were soundly defeated in their attempts to promote reckless and provocative methods among the peasantry. Nevertheless, in the recent period they have been lauding such "revolutionary gymnastics" in the advanced capitalist countries as well, particularly among the youth.

p Just as the emissaries of the "Fourth International" not long ago called for scattered peasant action, so they now urge separate "youth riots." By advocating irresponsible slogans such as "converting every university into a fortress of the revolution" and also by taking provocative action inducing some young people to reckless escapades verging on hooliganism, the Trotskyites have been leading the youth movement into an impasse and impeding the consolidation of the anti-imperialist fighting forces.

p The Trotskyites regard the youth movement by itself, apart from its social environment, from the highly acute class struggle being waged by the working class and the other working people. They try to convince the young people that they must act on their own, without forming any political alliances.

p Thus, Alain Krivine, a leader of the Trotskyite youth movement in France, declared on television on May 18, 1969, that any alliance of the Left-wing forces was a notorious myth. He said the Trotskyites were "opposed to any alliance of 50 the Left-wing forces because today it had no meaning.”

p True enough, at times some Trotskyites have urged the students to co-operate with the working class. However their own explanations show that the purpose is to recruit young workers into the "Fourth International" and not to establish revolutionary understanding between the working class and the students.

p The Trotskyites believe that the young people they win over may become better propagandists of their ideas than the emissaries of the "Fourth International," who have compromised themselves in the eyes of the people. Speakers at the Conference of the British Socialist League in June 1968 stressed that these are the young people who should be sent to the factories to establish contacts with the workers.

p By encouraging reckless putschist tendencies which now and then are evident among the young and by lauding isolated action that lacks mass support, the Trotskyites show they are not at all interested in broad co-operation between the students and the working class and other working people.

p On the one hand, the Trotskyites declared that they have succeeded in winning over the " revolutionary vanguard," meaning the advanced and conscious section of the youth. On the other hand, they have to admit that many of the fourteen and fifteen-year-olds who join them came out into the streets only "to beat up the cops.”   [50•1 

p During the 1968 events in France, the Trotskyites befuddled the minds of the youth by calling for "instant armed uprising," although the conditions did not exist for such an uprising. Moreover, the armed forces of repression were just waiting for the right moment to move in and "put down the disorders." Speakers at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party in July 1968 stressed that such a course would lead to a bloodbath of the working people and lay open the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, to defeat.

p Indeed, the irresponsible statements by the French Trotskyites about the need to "go out into the streets arms in hand" and the fires at the barricades lit by the young people they had incited, gave the authorities the pretext to act as champions of "law and order." Trotskyite Leftist catchwords not only helped to divide the anti-monopoly forces. They also were a direct support to the reactionaries who were glad to use the pseudo-revolutionary attitudes for their own purposes.

p The followers of the "Fourth International" behaved just as provocatively in Japan, where they had long been engaged in intrigues in the youth and student movement. Their fire-brand action has repeatedly provided the reactionaries with pretexts for carrying out sanguinary reprisals, as they did during the mass demonstrations by working people at Sinjuku (October 1968) and lokosuka (January 1969) among others.   [51•1 

p Such provocative views and actions tend to become all the more dangerous since they are closely tied up with the ideas being spread by other Leftists operating among the youth. Such "revolutionary gymnastics" are also being advocated by all the other ultra-Leftists, who insist that "defeats help to radicalize youth, whereas victories produce illusions.”

p The anarchists, for instance, hold that in clashes they provoke there should be no fear of loss of human life, just as "a man who gets behind the steering wheel of his car is aware that its tire may go flat.”   [52•1  Such ideas are also being spread among the youth by Maoist groups, who insist that loss of life should not be feared since revolutionaries allegedly have the task, no matter how small they are in numbers, to "bring about a revolution." The Maoists present the revolution itself as a succession of disorderly and absolutely spontaneous “riots”.

p In these conditions, "revolutionary gymnastics" is a tactic that helps to produce a peculiar climate of political adventurism and pseudo- revolutionariness among Left-radical young people. The Trqtskyite slogan about answering police violence in the language of revolutionary violence is practically no different, if at all, from the anarchist call to counter violence with violence. In both instances the most reckless action is being “theoretically” justified, and this includes arson, terroristic acts,, the burgling of shops, and the provoking of pointless and futile clashes with the police.

In the vortex of our day, and in the involved ways of class struggle, the young people find it hard to discover the right path to revolution. The Trotskyite tactic of "revolutionary gymnastics" prevents the young people from finding this path without undue delay.