This article links the subject matter of our previous issue on the history of the revolutionary movement in Greece to the general theme of this magazine, that of the attitude to be taken up by revolutionaries towards the Second World War. It first appeared under the title 'Trotsky et les Trotskystes face à la deuxieme guerre mondiale', in Cahiers Léon Trotsky, no 23, September 1985, pp35-60. Yet again we must offer our thanks to Professor Broué and his conscientious translator John Archer for permission to publish this thought-provoking contribution. It drew a sharp criticism at the time from Pierre Vert, 'Trotskyists in World War Two' Spartacist, nos 38-39, Summer 1986, pp46-8, to which Broué addressed a curt rejoinder, 'Broué Replies' in Spartacist, no 40, Summer 1987, and then a more extensive reply, 'La deuxième guerre mondiale: question de method' in Cahiers Léon Trotsky, no 39, September 1989, pp5-21.

The debate was extended by the publication of the Documents on the Proletarian Military Policy, the second of the Prometheus Research Series, in February 1989. The implications of the documents were further commented upon in 'World War II and the Proletarian Military Policy' in Workers Vanguard, 17 March 1989, and Workers Hammer, April 1989.

Three issues of the Cahiers Léon Trotsky have so far been devoted to this historical problem (nos 23, 39 and 43, September 1985, September 1989 and September 1990), and we have been able to publish two of our own, Revolutionary History, Volume I, nos 3 and 4, Autumn and Winter 1988. In the first of these appears Jean-Paul Joubert's essay on revolutionary defeatism (from the Cahiers, no 23) along with an essay written for us by Sam Levy, 'The Proletarian Military Policy Revisited', which now appears in the Cahiers, no 43. Those who are anxious to explore this theme in more detail are referred to the introductions to the different articles in these two previous issues of our journal, where numerous other references can be gleaned.

The dilemma of the European Trotskyists at the time is explored in 'Le Trotskysme et I'Europe pendant la deuxieme guerre mondiale' by Gerd Rainer-Horn, a young man who does not always see fit to acknowledge the sources of his material, in Cahiers Leon Trotsky, no 39, pp49-75, and by Al Richardson, 'Fourth International? What Fourth International?' in Workers News, October-November 1990. Other documentation on the collapse of the leading organs of the movement at the start of the war occurs in 'Trotsky in 1939-1940: The IEC Does Not Exist', in Spartacist, nos 43-44, Summer 1989, pp28-31. The politics of the French Trotskyists during the resistance struggle are now becoming more clearly known, both through their propaganda, more of which is now available in 'Documents sur la politique du Front Ouvrier (POI 1943) et sommaires des numeros du journal Front ouvrier (1944-48)', which appeared in Les Cohiers du CERMTRI, no 48, March 1988, and by their courageous activity on the spot as remembered by Andre Calves, Sans bottes ni medailles: Un trotskyste breton dans la guerre, which can be obtained from La Breche at 2 rue Richard Lenoir 93100, Montreuil, France, at a cost of 60 francs plus postage.

Opinions regarding the American (or Proletarian) Military Policy among the Trotskyists were sharply divided at the time, and remain so today. Readers of the former issue of our journal will gather that the majority of Greek Trotskyists were opposed to it. Stinas expressed himself most bitterly on the politics of the American, British and French Trotskyists (luring the Second World War (Memoires, Paris, 1989, p273), and an equally forthright condemnation by Karliaftis takes up the Minneapolis case in particular, in 'Cannon and the SWP: On the Track of the Social Betrayers in Front of the Second World War: Documents of the Workers Vanguard (Greece)', in Internationalist, no 5. January 1983. His criticism is derived from that made at the time by the veteran Spanish revolutionary Grandizo Munis, in 'Defense Policy in the Minneapolis Trial' in International Bulletin, Volume 2, no 4, and afterwards in El SWP y la guerro imperialista (1945) and Le Trotskysme et la Defaitisme Revolutionnaire (both of them still obtainable from Alarma, BP 329, 7564 Paris Cedex I 3). Similar criticisms were made at the time by the Indian Trotskyists (cf Charles Wesley Ervin, 'Trotskyism in India', in Revolutionary History, Volume 1, no 4, pp312). In Britain opinion was divided, the Revolutionary Socialist League itself being torn between outright rejection of the Military Policy by the Militant Centre Group of DD Harber and John Archer, together with the Left Fraction led by John Robinson and Tom Mercer, as against enthusiastic support from the Trotskyist Opposition of John Lawrence and Hilda Lane. The other group, the Workers International League, moved from a guarded response to a more whole-hearted agreement with the American SWP as the war went on (cf S Bornstein and A Richardson, War and the International, London, 1986, pp I 2-5, 34-5, 40-2), to the extent of publishing Cannon's courtroom testimony as a general educational pamphlet on Socialism in three separate editions. And there were still those associated with the WIL, like Fred Kissin, the leader of the Danzig Trotskyists, who felt that it did not go far enough, submitting a contribution of this own to the internal bulletin, 'The Present War and Socialist Internationalism' in April 1943. (Cf SF Kissin, War and the Marxists, Volume 2, London, 1989, pp203-3, which shows that this was still his opinion just before his death.) The agitation of the WIL inside the armed forces has also been touched on by Tony Aitman, 'The War Within the War' in the British Militant, 15 September 1989.

General Marxist analyses of the Second World War should be consulted by those who do not have the time to subject the various problems to closer scrutiny. Among the shorter of these we might mention Phil Frampton, 'Why the World Went to War', Militant, 8 September 1989, and 'Marxism and the Second World War', Workers Power, no 122, September 1989. A good overall guide remains Ernest Mandel's The Meaning of the Second World War, Verso, London, 1986) which was sharply criticised by Gemma Forest in 'Marxism and the Mid-Century' (Confrontation, no 3, Summer 1988, pp i 47-55) and in her review in this magazine (Volume 1, no 4, Winter 1988-89, pp45-8; cf the correspondence upon this in Volume 2, no 2, pp65-6, no 3, p50, and Volume 3, no 1, pp48-9).