June 10, 2009:

Lenin's strategy driving the creation of Third International parties went more or less like this.

Split the mass revolutionary currents away from the mass reformist parties far enough ahead of the outbreak of revolutionary conjunctures for the working masses and their allies to have time to understand the differences between the revolutionary and the reformist points of view, and to gain confidence in the revolutionary leaderships.

In this view a timely split was a necessary condition for revolutionary victory.

But, four crucial preconditions are implied:

1. Existence of a mass reformist party, implying in turn the loyalty of millions of working people and sympathizers committed to socialism.

2. Existence of a large revolutionary current within the broader mass socialist movement, forming its left wing.

3. Existence of a seasoned leadership at the head of the revolutionary current, capable of leading a new party after the split.

4. Reasonable anticipation of a pending revolutionary conjuncture.

Without these preconditions the formation of Third International style revolutionary cadre groups is pure sectarianism.

Under contemporary American circumstances, TI-style cadre groups are contrary to Lenin's strategy. In our context, absence of a mass reformist movement implies an approach closer to Marx's practice at the time of the First International.