Resolution of the Second World Congress on the

Committee Abroad of the Internationalist Communists of Germany

1948

Written: December 1948 and January 1949.
First Published: 1948
Source: Fourth International, New York, Volume IX, No. 6, August 1948, page 187..
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido and David Walters, December, 2005
Proofread/Edited: Scott Wilson, 2006
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2005. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.

1. The Committee Abroad (AK) of the Internationalist Communists of Germany (IKD), whose political position had been denounced as revisionist by the April 1946 International Conference, was invited by this Conference to collaborate with the IEC and the IS in the task of reorganizing the section in Germany.

2. Immediately after this Conference, the AK of the IKD publicly declared that it did not recognize the authority of the IEC and the IS elected at the Conference, and that it would conduct itself with regard to their recommendations and directives accordingly. All communications sent by the IS to the AK with the aim of getting their members to participate in the international work in Germany remained unanswered.

3. In spite of this, the IEIC wished to give the AK of the IKD an opportunity to defend its position in the international discussion preceding the World Congress, and at its October 1946 session invited the AK to participate in the discussion as well as in the Congress itself. At its March 1947 session, the IEC even went so far as to repeat the invitation, despite the fact that the AK had refused in advance to accept the discipline of the World Congress.

4. Despite these invitations, and despite the fact that all communications and circulars which went out to the regular sections of the International were sent also to the AK, the latter failed to make any reply, or to express its views on the Congress, or to send to the Congress a delegate or even a letter. Their only participation in the international discussion has been to send a lengthy two-year-old document, which the IS published in French and in English. This document repeats that “the AK will continue to ignore completely the IEC and the IS and their discipline,” etc.

Disloyal Factional Methods

5. During this period the AK of the IKD continually engaged in public activities outside the control of the International and without even informing the International leadership. These activities were and are entirely at odds with the political orientation of the International. Moreover, these activities included constant public attacks against the program, policies and leadership of the International. The AK had previously collaborated with the Workers Party in a phantom “Committee for the Fourth International,” which vainly tried to break up and destroy our international organization. When these efforts failed, the AK continued, by secret and disloyal faction methods, to try to break up the various sections of the International and its world organization.

6. Drawing the balance sheet of this entire experience, the World Congress declares that the Committee Abroad no longer has the right to speak in the name of the IKD. The AK, as a body recognized by the International, is declared dissolved. As individuals its members can remain in the International only if they accept the discipline of the new German leadership or the leadership of another section, and if in their public organs they carry out the political line adopted by the World Congress. Under such conditions, they will continue to enjoy the same rights that minority tendencies in the International have always fully enjoyed.

Last updated on 11.19.2005