61position" of mental attitude concerning which outcome into future decades. For such a purpose, there could behe deems relatively more desirable. A purely con- no circumstances more appropriate than those of 1938-templative, academic commentary on desirable- 40, especially under the conditions in which Trotsky'sundesirable outcomes is the essential thing for him. assassination was already imminent. The looseIf his party manifests a wholly imbecilic policy toward federation of existing national "Trotskyist" factionsnew developments, the important aspect of this evidence could not fulfill such a role. It was essential to drasticallyis the good issues it will represent at next year!s party counteract the centrist tendencies immanent inconvention! The exigencies of time and space are autonomous national formations, by subordinating thesecondary to the tempo and protocol of his party's national groupings politically to the hegemony of a grouporganizational ritual, of persons whose primitive outlook was international.His concern is not to willfully, ruthlessly, efficiently However tiny, however isolated, an internationaldetermine the course of history, but to play the game of executive must exist.socialist politics in the way that will earn him merit inAt first glance, this purpose failed. The two principal,the Great Beyond. Hence, such a "frotskyist," schismatic heirs of that international stand in ruins. Theexemplified in the crudest extreme by the little sectlets, islargest of the two, the "New Trotskyist" Unifiedpreoccupied chiefly with the imitation of a Christ- Secretariat, is an eroding shambles, whole nationalTrotsky who passionately failed and went to a Greatsections collapsing even as the opposing, split-orientedReward. factions of Mandel and Barnes maneuver over possessionThe immediate personal issue embedded in this of the spoils. The former principal competitor, thewretched cult is the Feuerbachian refusal to eradicateLondon-based "International Committee," has alreadythe neurotic flaw, to supersede the Ego-state whichsplit, many of its former elements already dissolved orprevents him from becoming self-conscious, becoming collapsed. Yet, neither of these decaying hulks"intellectual" in the Labor Committees' meaning of thatrepresents even a form of the "Old Trotskyism." Theterm. Like Feuerbach, the victim of the Trotsky Syn- organized expressions of "Old Trotskyism" died duringdrome not only regards the creative understanding asthe 1961-66 period. Worse, from the time of Trotsky'sincomprehending to him, but stubbornly refuses to give assassination there never existed an internationalup those neurotic passions which, as flaws, prevent himexecutive which expressed the strategical method andfrom comprehending that understanding. Hence, conceptions which Trotsky aimed to secure against thedecreeing his pathetic state of impotence the "'normal," future.unalterable condition of mortal man, the victim of theIt might appear that Deutscher's criticism isTrotsky Syndrome demands that he be "le a_ I am," inhistorically vindicated, after all. Perhaps Trotsky'sa state of impotence, unable to judge and _ct according writings themselves were the only efficient source ofto self-consciousness. "continuity." Such a case for Deutscher's argument ismerelyspecious.Epilogue: "The Fourth International" Relative to Trotsky's writings, we may usefullycompare the case for written music. Contrary to theBy empiricist criteria, Deutscher was totally j Jstified formalists, the written score does not speak for itself.It isin viewingthe 1938founding of a"Fourth Intern'ational" merely the composer's mnemonic ruse, by which heas the comi-tragic gesture which the organization itself communicates to a musician, provided the musician ishas always been. By "business standacds," there could .familiar with the conventions by which the score is to benot have been a poorer occasion for that fort_ation. The interpreted. In music, such a problem arises notoriouslylabor movement in Europe lay in. the worst ebb in respectingthe performance of scores from as recently asdecades, the Left Opposition cadres (the gore of Trot- the eighteenth century e.g., Bach, Telemann, onsky's support) had recently been virtt, ally wiped out. The which there are regularly new upsetting generaldiscoveries. Similarly, Trotsky's writings areconstantlyonly stable if tiny organized section was the SWP, notstrictly a Trotskyist group at all, and in a country in addressed to terms of reference which exist only in thewhich early-to-middle 1930's political ferment had experience of vanguard socialist parties; a person fromdegenerated into mere left trade-unionism, such a milieu may usually not comprehend Trotsky'sYet, by other criteria, Trotsky's decision was correct, argument, but only a person of such experience couldThe essential, historic decision was twofold. The understand the bulk of his strategic outlook.principal consideration was the establishment of a self- The comparison is in no way strained.consciously organized, self-maintaining germ-form to The point of view of the leading activists in a vanguardconduct continuity with the world-outlook of Bolshevism grouping is the problem of connecting a general trans-
62formation of society to "molecular" interactions with pointing to the emerging importance of the Laborindividuals. Even the centrist, who degrades trans- Committee organizations of North America and Westernformation to chiliastic "policy postures" or so-called Europe. Despite the "Old Trotskyism," etc., the Labor"positions," confronts this problem as it bears upon Committees were made possible by Trotsky's decision toachievement of even modest intermediate organizing .form the Fourth International! His purpose was sucaccomplishments.The daily life of the organized cessfully realized despite the Trotskyists.movement is situated in the problem of the organizing The initiation of the Labor Committees, fromprocess through which a handful of accredited pariahs proverbial "scratch," back in mid-1966 was the direct(socialists) attempt to effect a favorable change in quality outcome of a deliberate negation of both the "Oldof attitudes toward socialism among anti-socialists. It is Trotskyism" and of the principal errors of Trotskythe molecular tactical day-to-day experience which the himself. This developed out of an examination of thesocialist leader addresses as referent in efforts to vicious discrepency between the practice of the varioussupersede the tactical by a strategic policy outlook, schisms of the "Fourth International" from the stand-The daily life of socialist organizations confronts their point of organizing practice. This outcome reflects theactive members -- especially the leaders with an essential, historic validity of the 1938 founding: to createoverview of problems whose experience is only implicit the" continuity of organized practice in which socialistand undefined for persons outside such experience, theory might dialectically correct itself. The properHence the continuity of essential socialist theoretical purpose of the international was not to pass along anwork requires a continuity of organized socialist activity unaltered body of .fixed Bolshevik doctrine and exgovernedby such theoretical inquiry, perience, but to maintain a body of creative activityDeutscher's argument is more directly refuted by which situated and tested itself sensuously in ongoingWhen I become themajority, I shall changethe rules. Meanwhile,happily lacking suchrights to act, I can safelydo nothing moresignificant than dulypublish my 'position' onpassing events.ill, _