Leon Trotsky, the president of the first Petro­grad Soviet of Workers Deputies and organizer 0

the Red Army, the first Peoples Commissar of For­ei~n Affairs , the pioneer advoca t e of industrial­ization and economic planning for the youthfulRussian worker s r epubl i c and initiator wit.h Leninof the st.ruggl.e aga inst Stal inism, appears in thefollowing essay as the brilliant continuator ofMarxist theory into our times .

His Ninety Years of the Communist Manifesto waswritten in 1937 as a preface to the pUblication inthe Union of South Africa of the first edition ofthe Marx-Engels Communist ~1anifesto in Africaans ,the Lang uage of the Dutch settlers there .

Trotsky utilized the occasion to evaluate , totest t he analysis and prognoses of t.he Manifestoin the light of events that had unf olded in the 90years s ince its publication . While sever-e.ly I imit­ed in its sc ope it. is written with the same brea d t hof style and penet.rat.tng insi~ht that tYlJifies hisla rger cont r i but i ons il1 which he appl ied and dev ­eloped the theory of Marxism on fascism , the prob­lems of bureaucracy and workers democracy, theinterrelation between the revolution in the in­dustrially developed and less developed count r i e s,etc . But a s a r eview and critique this essay con ­stitutes an indispensable supplement to this ~reat

classic of scientific socialism.In the final pa r ag raph Trotsk y makes a predict­

ion with regards to the Fourth Int. er-nat.LonaI whichhas not yet been r ealized . This prediction, likethose made by Marx and Enaels in the Manifesto i t­se l-f, has no thing in co mmon with c r ys t a l ballga zing but was designed t o determine Long r a n gestra t egy and pers pec t i ve s . I n es sence it re iteratesthe pe rspect ive of t he Man ifesto conc r et.izeri int e rms o f existing conditions a nd pol itica l cur­rents. With the Sin o-S o vi et dis put.e and its r ep­e r cus s dons cna worl d scale, t he cont i nuing cris isof s ocia l democracy, a nd the reunifica t ion of themajor forc es of t he Fourth Internati onal Tr otsky' spredic tion now a ppea r s ce rta in t o be borne out .--R. D. (Mimeogr a phed in Canada fo r the WorkersVanguard Pub.l i.sh ing Association , November 1, 1963)

- :The"Communist

ManifestoToday

BY.

LEON TROTSKY

. . It -.is .ha r d .t o believe that the centennial ofthe Manifesto of the COlID'llu!1ist Party is only tenyears away! (This was written Ln 1937 -ed .) Thispamphlet, displaying greater genius than any otherin world literature, astounds us even today by itsfreslmess . Its most important sections appear tohave been Writ.ten yest.er-day, Assuredly, the. youngauthors (Marx was 29, Engels 27) were able to lookfurther into the future than anyone before .t hem,and perhaps anyone since them .

Already in their ,jq~t preface to the editionof H~72, Marx and Enge'Ls declared that despite thefact that certain secondary passages in the Man­ifesto were antiquated, they felt that they no

. Longer had any right to ..alter the original textinasmuch as the Manifesto had already become ahistorical. document, during the intervening periodof twenty five years • . Slxty five additional years

. have elapsed since that time . Isolated passages inthe Manifesto have receded still furtre r into thepast~l try -to establish succinctly in thisPreface both those ideas in the Manifesto whichretain their full force today and those which re-

quire Lmpor-t.ant alteration or amplification .

1. The materialist conception of history, dis­covered by Marx only a short while before andappl i ed with con summate skill in the ~,has compl et ely withstood the test. of events a ndthe blows of hostile criticism. It constitutes to­day one of the most precious i nstruments of humanthought. All other interpretat.ions of the histor­ical process have lost all scientific mearri.n g , Weca n state with cert a inty that it is impossible Inour time not only to be a revolutionary militantbut even a literate observer in politics withoutassimilating the mat.erialist interpretation ofhistory.

2. The first chapter of the~ openswith the following wor ds : " The hi.st.ory of al lhitherto existing society is the history of cJ assstruggles . " This post.ula te , the mos t importantconclusion drawn from the rnaterial ist interpretat­ion of history, immediately became an issue in theclass struggle . Especially ven omous attacks weredirected by reactionary hypocr-i. t.es , liberal doct­r ina i r e s a nd idealistic democrats a gainst thetheory which replaced "common we'Lf'ar'e!", "na t i ona luni ty" and "et er nal moral t rut.hs" a s the dr i v i ngf orce by the struggl e of material interests . Theywere l a t e r joined by recruits from the ranks of thelabor movement itself , by the so -called revision­ists , Le . , the proponents of reviewing ( "revis ­Lng" ) Marxism in the spirit of class collaborationa nd class conciliation . Finally, in our own time ,the same path has been followed in practice by thecontemptible epigones of the Communist Internat­ional (the " Stal i n i s t s"): the policy of the s o­call ed ' '' Peopl e s Front" flows wholly from the den­ial of the l aws of t he class stru~gle . Mea nwhile ,i t i s pr ecisel Y the epo ch of imperialism, brine;ingall s oc ial contradictions to the point cr highe sttension,which gives to the~ Manifesto itssupreme theoretical t riumph .

3. The anatomy of capitalism, as a specificstage in the eoonomi.c development of society, wasgiven by Marx in its f'Lnf.shed form in Capital(lR67). But already in the Communist Manifesto themain lines of the future analysis are firrn]y sket­ched: ' the payment for Labor: power as equivalentto the cost of its r-eproduct Lon; the appropriationof surplus value by the capitalists; competitionas the basic law of social relations; the ruinat­1.on of intermediate classes, i. e , , the urban pettybourgeoisie and the . peasantry; the concentrationof wealth in the hands of an ever diminishing num­ber of property owners at the one pole, ' and thenumer-Lcal. growth of the proletariat, at the other;the preparation of the materialand· political pre­conditions for the soc ;ial;i.st regime.

4 • .The proposition in the~ concerningthe tendency of ' capttal.Lsm Lo lower the liyingstandards of the workers', and even to transformthem in t o paupers, has been subjected to a heavybarrage. Parsons, professors, ministers, · journal­ists, . eoc La'l.-democr-at.Lc t.heor-et.Lctans , and tradeunion. leaders 'came to the frontagainst the so­called "theory of impoverishment" •. They invariablydLscover-ed signs of growing prosperity ' among thetoilers, palming off the labor aristocracy as thepro'Ietar-Iat , or taking a ' fleeting tendency as per­manent." Meanwhile, even the developnent of themightiest " capitalism in the world, namely, U.S.capitalism, has transformed millions of workersinto paupers, who are maintained at the expense offederal, muni.c Lpa'L'or- private charity.

5. As against the Manifesto,which depictedcommercial and .: industrial " crd.ses as a series ofever more extensive catastrophes, the revts Icnfst.evowed that the national "and international develop­ment " of trusts would assure control over the mar­ket.,and lead graduallY to the abolition of crises.The close of the last century and the beginning ofthe present "arie were in reality marked by a devel­opment of capitalism so tempestuous as to make

cr-Lses vaeem only "~c~idental" stoppages . But , thisepoch-has gone beyond return . In the l ast a na 'ly­sis,trutb ' -"prov'ed~_ to be on Mar x ' s side in thisques t i on , ~s well . " '

6 . , "The executive of the modern stat.e is but, acommittee for managing the common affairs of thewhole bourgeoisie . " this suc cinct formula, whichthe leaders of the social democracy looked upon asa journalistic paradox, contains in fact the onlyscientific theory of the state . The democracyfashioned by the bourgeoisie is not , as both Bern­stein and .Kau t sky thought , an empty sack which onecan undisturbedlY fill '''With a ny kind of class con­tent . Bourgeois ' democr-acy can only ~erve thebourgeoisie . A government of tile " Peopl e ' s Front",whether headed by .Bl.um or Chautemps, Caballero orNegrin, is only "a committee for managtng the com­mon a f f airs of the whole bour-ge ols Ie , " Wheneverthis "commi t t ee" manages affairs poor-Ly, the bour­goisie dismis ses it with a boot.

,7. "Ever y class struggle is a political strug­gle" . "The organization of the proletariat as aclass (is) consequently its organization into a

, pol i t i ca l party". Trade unionists, on the onehand, and anarcbo-eyndLcal i st.e on the other, havelong shied away -- and even now try to shy away-

" {rom the understanding of these historical Laws ," Pur e" t rade unionism has 'now been dealt a crush­ing blow in its chief refuge : the United States .Anarcho-syndicalism has suffered a n irreparabledefeat in its last stronghold -- Spain . Here toothe~ proved correct .

8. Tl"e proletariat ca nnot conquer power withinthe l egal f r amewor k established by the bour geoi s i e."Oommunf.et s ope nly declare t hat their end s ca n bea ttained only byt.he forcible over t hr ow of all ex ­ist ing :s oci a l ' condi t.Lons ;" Ref ormi sm sought to

"exp l.a dn this post"ul ate of the Manifes t o on the"gr ounds ' of the ' immatu rity of the movement a t that

time, and the inadequate development of democracy,The fate of Italian, German, and a great number ofother "democracies" proves that "immaturity" isthe distinguishing trait of' the ideas of the ref­orm'iat aLhemse.Lves , .

9. For the socialist transformation of society,the working class must concentrate in its handssuch power as can smash each, and every politicalobstacle barring the road to the new system. "Theproletariat organized as the tu1ing -class" -- thisis the dictatorship. At the same time it· is theonly true proletarian democracy. Its scope anddepth 'depend upon concrete historical c':.mditions ..The ' greater the number of states 't ha t take theoat.h of the socialist revolution, the freer andmore flexible forms will the dictatorship assume,the broader and more deep-going will be work­ers' democracy• .

10. The international 'devel opment of capitalismhas predetermined the Lnt.er-nat.Lona'L character ofthe proletarian revolution. "United 'a ct i on , of the

, Lead Ing civilized countries at least, is one of 't h efirst cond Ltdons for the emancipation of the prol­etariat". ,The .subs equent devel.ojment of capitalismhas ' so closelY ' kn Lt all sections of OUi' planet,both "civilized" and "uncd.vfl.Lzed", that ' t he prob­Le m of the socialist r-evo'Iut.Lon has completely and

- , -dec l s LveLy assumed a world character. 'The Sovietbureaucracy attempted to liquidate the Manifp-sto

" , wi t h respect to this fundamental question. ,The--=.--' Bonapartist degeneration of the Soviet. state is an

-" overwhelming illustration of the falsen-ess' of ,the"t heor y of soc ta.Hsmdn one country.

_ _ 11. "When, in the cour-se of devaLopmentr," class-~',<: distinctions have disappeared, and all 'pr oduct i on, has been concentrated in the hands' of 'a vast ass-

ociation of the . whole nation, the public . power'will lose its poLt.t.Lca.I. character." In : otherwords; . the state withers , away. Societ;r ,r €5ma ins ,

,. ' ' . freedf-rom the straight-jacket.·-· . This is ' nothing

5 - '.

eJ se l:1~ ':, s ocial i bln. The c~~verne theor~m: t hemonat.ro us gr owth of state coercion in the ussa iseloquent test.imony t.hat " society is movin g e.wayf ru .m soc.ia Li.sm,

12. "The workingmen ha ve no fatherland." Thesewoi -ds of the ~~anifesto have more than on ce . beenevaluated by philistines as ,a n agitational quip.As a ··'~~tter 'o f fac t -t h ey provided the proletariat

·.....ith t he sole conceivabl e dir ective i n t he qu es t­ion of the capitulist " f'at.her-Land' ", The vi olationof this directive by the Se cond In t.er-nat.tona l,

' br uugh t about not only four years ryf devac t.atLon1.'1 Eur ope , but the present sta gna t i on ,of worldculture. In view of t he impendin~ new \'lar" forwhich the betra.yal of the Thi r d Interne-tional haspaved the way, the Manifes to remains even now themost> r'e'Li.ab.l,e counsellor on the ques tion of thecapitalist "fatherland."

Thus, we see t hat the :jo i n t and rather briefproduction of two youn g authors still continues togive irreplaceable directives upon the most impor­tant and burning questions of the struggle foremancipation . What other book could even distant-

, l Y be compared in this respect with the 'Communi s tManifesto? But this does not imply that, afterninety years of unprecedented development of prod­uctive forces and vast social struggles, the Man­ifesto needs neither corrections nor additions.Revolutionary thought has nothing in common with'i dol - wor s hi p _ ' Pr ogr ams ,an d prognoses are testedand corrected in the light of experience, w:hich isthe supreme criterion of human reason. The , ' Man­ifesto, too, requires corrections .and additions.However, as is evidenced by historical experienceitself, these corrections and additions can besuccessfully made only by proceeding in accordwith the method lodged in the foundation of the~ itself _ We shall try to indicate this

6 ·

i i, eev ercL mcs t Lrapor-tarrt instances.

1;, l':c.:'x taught t.hat no social sy ct.em depar-t sfrom the arena of history before exhausting it3creative potentialities. The ~.£!}ifesto excor-Lateecapital i.sm f or retarding the development of pro d­uct i ve f'or-c e s , Dur-Ing that period , howev er , [,3 int he f'oLLowing, de ca de s , t his r-et.e.rdatLon was onlyL~1&.\.~ i n nat. ur-e, Had it ·bee n '. posnfbl,e in t.hesec ond ha'l.f of t he 19th Century t o or'ga rri.r.o o'.'on­oraY-on' so cidist bc gd.nrrlngo , i t::; t.omp-ie of bl'O,\ t, ~l

....ould have " 8 0 ;1 i'!l;;'~ ::-asar<~ bl J ' gr eater , But t.rti.st heoretically irrcLrt <::.bl e postal to docs not, hote--

. ever. Lnve.I i da te t he f e.ct t.ha t.: t hei pr oduct.Lve for­co s kep t expanding on a world ccaLe right up tothe world war , Only in t.he las t h -Tenty .y ea r-e , des­pite the most moder-n conquests of sc Lenco andt.echno Io gy, has the epocr. · be gun of ouc-end-outstagnation a nd ev en decl i ne of wor-Ld economp'..· Man­kind is beginning to expend its accumulated capit­al, while the next war threatens to destroy thevery. foundations of civilization for ·rr.ciny years tocome . , The ·authors of the Manifesto thought thatcapitalism would be scrapped long prior to thetime when from a relativelY reactionary regime itwould turn into an 'a bsol ut el Y reaotlonany regime .This transformation book final shape only beforet he eyes of the present generation, and changedour epoch into the epoch ' of wars, revolutions, andfascism.

2. The error of Marx and Engels in regard tothe historical dates flowed on the one hand froman underestimation of future possibilities latentin capitalism, and, on the other, anoverestimat­ion of the revolutionary maturity of the proletnr­iat. The revolution of 1848 did not turn into asocialist revolution as the Manifesto had -cal.cul»ated, but opened up to Germany the possibility ofa. vast future capitalist ascension . The ParisConunune proved that the proletariat,without havinga tempered revolutionary party at its head, cannot

wrest power from t~e bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, theprolonged Period of capitalist prosperity that en­sued br-ought. about not the education of the revol­utionary vanguard, but rather the bourgeo i.s degen­eration 'of the labor ar-Lstocracy, which became inturn the chief brake 01 the proletarian revolution.In the nature of things, the authors of the Man­ifesto could not possibly have forseen this "dia­lectic."

. 3. For the ~,capitalismwas- the king­dom of free competition. While referring to thegrowing concentration of capital, the~did not draw the necessary conclus;ion in r-egar-d tomonopoly which has become the dominant capitalistform in' 'our . epoch, and the most. important pre­condition ·f or socialist. economy. Only afterwards,5~ Ca:pital;didl1~rx establish the te!idency .t:,oward ~t.he transformation of free compet.i.t ton Lnt.o monop­qJ.-Y:· ·c•. ' I t ~s Lerririwho gave a scientific charac.t­e:rization 'of mqnopoly···.capitalism in his Imperial-ism. . - . .

.:.:_" ;':4. ' Ba:s1:~· . :tl!eJ!iselves 'pr~rilY on the exampLe:, .of ' ."industrial..revQliition l.! P1 England, t.he..auj. hor-e. ',of 'the Manifesto" p.ict.ured far too unilaterally the

'pr ocees of :l i qui da:tioh of .t he ..interinediate classesas a wholesale 'pr ol e t a r i a ni za t i on of crafts, pettytrades and the peasantry. In point of fact, the.~lemental .f'once s of competition have far f'rom com-

" pJ:';'~ed .t hi s .s dmul.t.an eous l y progresai.ve and barbar­_.,.,..ous work. ' ··C.ap i taliSm had ruined. the 'pe t t y bour-g­.: eo LsLe ' at a much fast:er rate than -i t has 'pr ol e t a r ­

ianized it. . Furthermore, the bour-geof,s s tat.e has, long directed its' conscious ' policy toward ,t he . art­

ificial maintenance of petty bourgeois strata. At' . the opp081t'e -po:le, the growth of technology and the

rationalization of large scake industry -engenders. . .... .. chronic ' unemployment and obstructs the proletar­'. ianization of the petty bourgeoisie. 'Concu r r-ent.Ly ,

the development oIcapitalism has accelerated inthe extreme the growth of legion::, of bechrri.c.lans ,administrators, coinmercial employees,in short, the

so-called "new middle c'Lase" ; In consequence, theintermediate classes , to whose disappearance theManifesto so categoricallY refers, comprise evenin a country as highly industrialized as Germany,about one-half of the population . However, the .artificial preservat ion of antiquated petty 'bourg- ,eo Ls strata nowise mitigates the social coritr'ad­ictions , but,on the contrary, invests them with anespecial malignancy, .and together with the perman­ent. army of the unempl.oyed constitutes t.he mostmalevolent expr-e'es i.on of the decay of capitalism.

5. Calculated for a r-evo'Lut Ionar-y epoch theManifestocontains(end of; Chapter II) ten demands,corresponding to the period of direct transitionfrom capitalism to socialism. In their Preface r::£1872 , Marx and Engels declared these demands to be.in part. an t.i.quat.edvar.d , in any case, only of second­ary importance. The reformists seized upon thisevaluation to . interpret it in the sense that tran­sitional revolutionary demands had forever cededtheir place to the social ' democraticllminimumprogram", which, as is well known, does not trans­cend the limits of bourgeois democracy• ..As·amatter of fact the authors of the f-ianifcsto indic­ated quite precisely the main cor~f ' theirtransitional program, namely, liThe working. classcannot simply lay hold of the r-eady-made statemachinery, · and Vlield .i t for its m.JI1 purposes ; " Inother words , the correction was directed. agad.nst.the fetishism of bourgeois democracy. Marx latercounterposed to the capitalist ' st a t a , the' state ofthe type of the Commune. 'I'hd.s "type II .subs equent l yassumed the much mor-e graphic shape of Soviets.There cannot be a: revolutionary program todaywithout Soviets and hrithout workers' control. Asfor the rest , the ten demands of the Manifesto,which appeared "ar-chaic" in an epoch of peacefulparliamentary activity, have today regained com­pletely their true s1gnificance . The social-dem­ocratic .-"minimum pr-ogram", on the ' other hand , hasbecome hopelessly ant.Iquat.ed ,

6. Basing its expectation that . "the ' ·Ge r ma nbour-geo Is r-evo.Lut ton', , , .will be but a prelude ' toan ' iimnediatelY· following proletarian revolution",the Manifesto cites the much more advanced condit­ions of European . civilization as compared withwhat existed in England in the 17th Century and inFrance in the 18th Century, and the far greaterdeve'l.opnent of the proletariat . The error in thispr-ogno 'si.e was not only in the date . The Revolutionof 1848 revealed within a few months that precis-

. ely under more advanced conditions, none of thebourgeois classes is capable of bringing the rev­olution to its termination; the big and middlebourgeoisie is far too closelY linked with thelandowners,and fettered by the fear of the masses;the petty bourgeoisie is far too divided, and inits lending t.ops far too dependent en tre bi.~ bour­Jeoi 81 e : As evidenced by the entire subsequent·course of development in Europe and Asia, thebourgeoas revolution , taken by itself, can no morein ' general be consummated. A complete purge . offeudal rubbish . from society is conceivable onlyon ' the ccmdition that the proletariat, freed fromthe influence of bourgeois parties; . can take itsstand at the head of the peasantry and establishits r-evoIutLonar-y dictatorship. By this token, thebourgeois revolution becomes interlaced .with thefirst stage of the socialist revolution, subse­quent.Ly to dissolve in the latter. The nationalrevolution therewith becomes a link of the worldrevolution . The transformation of the economicfoundation and of all social relations assumes apermanent (uninterrupted) character.

For revolutionary parties in the backward coun­tries of Asia, Latin America and Africa, a clearunderstanding of the organic connection betweenthe democratic revolution and the dictatorship ofthe proletariat -- and thereby, the ' internationalsocialist revolution, - is a life-and-death quest-ion. . .

10

7. While depicting how capitalism draws intoi ts vortex backward and barbar-ous count.r-Les , the~ contains no r ef er ence to the struggle ofcolonial and semi-colonial countries for independ­ence . To the extent that Marx and Engels consider­ed the social revolution " i n the leading civilizedcountries at least" , to be a matter of the nextfew years , the colonial question was resolvedautomatically for them , not in consequence of anindependent movement of oppressed nationalitiesbu t in consequence of the victory of the proletar­iat in the metropolitan centres of capitalism. Thequestions of revolutionary strategy in colonialand semi-colonial countries are therefore nott ouched upon at all by the Manifesto . Yet thesequestions demand an independent solution . For ex­ample, it is quite self-evident that while the"national fatherland" has become the most banefulhistorical brake in advanced capitalist countries ,it still remains a relatively progressive factorin backward countries compelled to struggle for anindependent existence .

"The Communists" , declares the ~,

"everywhere support every revolutionary movementa gainst the existing social and political order ofthings " . The movement of the colored races againsttheir imperialist oppressors Is one of the most im­portant and powerful movements against the existingorder and therefore calls for the compl et e, unc on­ditional and unlimited support on the part of theprolatariat of the white race , The credit fordeveloping r evol ut i onary strategy for oppressednationalities belongs primarily to Lenin .

P. The most ant i qua t ed section of the~- - not with respect to method , but material -- isthe criticism of " social i s t" literature for thefirst part of the 19th Century (Chapter rrr) andthe definition of the position of the Communistsi n relation to various opposition parties (Chapter

11

IV) . : The movements a~d parti~;s li;t,'ecj''i n - 't h~ ~'ifesto wer e SJ drastically swept away either by the ..revolution of 1848 or the ensuing counter-revolut­ion that one must look up even their .names in ahistorical dictionary. However; in this section,too, the Manifesto is perhaps closer to us !low thanit ,was to the previous generation . In the epochof the flowering of the Second International whenMarxism seemed to exert an undivided sway, theideas of pre-Marxian soc ia'ld.em could have beenconsidered as having receded decisively into thepast. Thin~s are otherwise today. The decompos­ition of the social-democracy and the Comintern atevery step engenders monstrous Ldeo log.lca'l relap-ses . Senile thought seems to have become infan-tile . In search of all-savin'S formulae, the pro -phets in the epoch of decline; discover anew doc,t ­rines long since buried 'by sc i.ent.Lf'Lc socialism. '

As touches the question of opposition parties,it is in this domain that the elapsed decades haveintroduced the most deep-going changes, not onlyin the sense that the old parties have long beenbrushed asd.de byriewonea, but also Ln the sensethat the very character of parties and th~ir mut-

, ual relations have radically chan t ed in the, con ­ditions of the imperialist epoch . The,~must therefore be amplified with the most import­ant .document .e of the first four Conzr-eases ,cr theCommunist International; the essential literatureof Bolshevism and the decisions of the Conferencesof the Fourth International .

We have ' already remarked 'a bove that accordingto Marx no social order departs from the scenewithout ~i.rst exhausting the potentialities latentin it. However,' even an antiquated social orderdoes not cede its place to a new order withoutresistance . A change in social regimes presupposesthe harshest form of the class struggle, Le.,

12

revolution . If the proletariat, for one reason oranother , proves incapable of overthrowing with anaudacious blow the outlived bourgeois order , thenfinance capital in the struggle to maintain itsunstable rule can do nothing but turn the pet t ybourgeoisie ruined and demora lized by it into thepogrom army of fascism . The bourgeois degenerationof the social-democracy and the fascist degenerat­ion of the petty bourgeoisie are interlinked ascaus e and effect .

At the present time , the Third Internationalfar more wantonly than the Second, performs in allcountries the work of deceiving and demoralizingthe toilers . By massacring the vanguard of theSpanish proletariat , the unbridled hirelings ofMoscow not only pave the way for fascism but aleoexecute a goodly share of its labors . The pro­tracted crisis of the international revolution ,which is t.urrri.n a more and more into a crisis ofhuman culture, is reducible in its essentials tothe crisis of revolutionary leadership.

As the heir to the great t radition , of whichthe Manifesto of The Communist Party forms themost precious link, the Fourth International iseducat.Lng new cadres fo r the solution of ol d tasks .Theory is generalized reality. In an hone s t att­itude to revolutionary theory is expressed t he im­passioned urge to reconstruct the social reality.'I'hat in the Southern part of the Dark Continentour co-thinkers were the first to tra.nslate theMani festo into t he Afr i kaa ns language is anothergraphic illustration of the f a ct t ha t Marxistthought lives today only unde r the banner of theFourth International . To it belongs the future .When the centennial of the Communist Manifesto iscel ebr a t ed, the Fourth In ternational will hav ebecome the decisive revolutionary f orce on ou rplanet .

Coyoacan , October 30th, 1937

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