Documents : Fifteenth World Congress - 2003
A new world situation
[…]
1 The rise of contradictions among imperialist powers
1 The new structure of globalized capitalism contains the
seeds of a substantial worsening of inter-imperialist rivalries among the three
regional economic blocs, each structured around one of the three big economic
powers. The US, the only "global" power, ensures the stability and
persistence of the system of exploitation, while abusing its position of
strength to impose its will on its rivals. The political result of the new war
could substantially change the political and economic relationship of forces
between the USA on one side and the imperialist powers (EU and Japan) and great
powers (Russia, China) that are becoming integrated into the world market. The
recession will sharpen them.
[…]
3 The European bourgeoisies have achieved an indisputable
success with the adoption of the single currency. At the current stage the
members of the Union are trying to take better advantage of the common economic
space and to become more competitive on the world market. A succession of major
merger and concentration operations has taken place among the most powerful
industrial, commercial, financial and banking groups. The Single Market is
moving forward in particular in the harmonization of financial markets. Since
the Kosovo war the EU has set itself the goal of forming an armed force
autonomous from the US. This is directly linked to the EU's eastwards
enlargement, which is running into many obstacles, as the accession countries
are obliged to introduce the required deregulation, privatizations and
structural changes. By transforming the EU into a fortress (by means of the
Schengen accords) the EU is trying to halt the flow of populations from south
of the Mediterranean, Black Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.
The dominant classes' will to advance towards a 'European great
power' implies a reform of the EU institutions, which today are very hybrid, in
order to arrive at a genuine supranational political leadership. The EU has
managed to acquire the first core of a truly supranational state apparatus,
surrounded by a series of steadily more coherent interstate coordinating
bodies. But its construction is still transitional and fragile. It is cut
across by major contradictions among the (larger) member states. It represents
a retreat from parliamentary democracy. Its popular legitimacy remains very
limited, thanks to its virulently anti-social policies. At the same time its
dynamic remains at work, propelled by the general capitalist globalization and the
needs of big European Capital. It is obliged to confront the obstacles and move
forward, because retreating would lead to a serious crisis that would endanger
everything that has been gained (particularly the monetary union).
Rivalry with the US is a major stimulus for the construction of a
European state. US capitalism has a powerful state apparatus at its disposal,
present on every continent. It constitutes an indispensable support structure
for all the imperialist bourgeoisies. But at the same time the US uses it to
favour its own multinationals in fierce battles on the level of economic
competition and for spheres of political influence.
European big capital cannot pull back from its attempt to create
its own European imperialist state. This state's emergence inevitably implies a
new balancing act relative to the current US supremacy. This cannot happen
without frictions and conflicts.
[…]
THE FALL OF THE STALINIST BUREAUCRACY,
RESTORATION OF CAPITALISM AND INTEGRATION INTO THE WORLD ECONOMY
1 Crisis and capitalist restoration in the USSR and Eastern Europe
[…]
5 In all the EU accession countries, pressures to open up the
economies and particularly banking to foreign capital intensified in the second
half of the 1990s. More than 70 per cent of the banks are foreign-controlled in
several Central European countries, including Poland, where unemployment is
over 17 per cent.
The race to join the European Union, which is still the alibi for
the unpopular policies imposed by Central European leaders, has accelerated the
break-off of the richest regions, which have been casting off the ''budgetary
burden''' of other regions in their haste to push themselves into the EU.
The accession countries have radically reoriented their trade
towards the EU, and are now subject to the fluctuations of the EU's growth
rates and contending with more or less structural trade deficits. By deepening
poverty and unemployment, the criteria imposed by the EU on the accession
countries are in fact making EU membership more and more costly - while the lid
remains clamped down tight on the European budget. The EU will no doubt cut the
aid given to Southern European countries rather than extend Common Agricultural
Policy subsidies to Eastern European farmers.
The EU's failures in terms of the crisis in ex-Yugoslavia and the
wars there have encouraged NATO's redefinition and eastward expansion. NATO's
eastwards expansion enables the United States to have an influence on the
future member states of the EU and on those of its periphery, in particular in
the Balkans, offering the latter a substitute for EU membership.
6 Alternation in office without any real political
alternative has become the norm behind the new political pluralism. Abstention
rates continue to rise, it is hard to put together parliamentary majorities for
governments, and financial scandals are spreading to taint all the parties in
power, whatever their labels. The rapid and general return to office of
ex-Communists through the ballot box has shown people's deep disillusionment
with neo-liberal prescriptions and their hope for more social policies. But
their hopes have been quickly dashed by the ex-Communist parties'
social-liberal transformation.
Documents : Fifteenth World Congress - 2003
Role and tasks of the Fourth International
[…]
[…]
8 Within the European Union, brutal neo-liberal policies derive
from a supranational, proto-state apparatus that directly affects every aspect
of everyday life and therefore the lives of wage earners. Up against this, the
official European trade-union movement has a disastrous record. Existing
structures must be activated; direct initiatives must be taken. This includes:
solidarity with specific struggles waged in one country but meaningful for all
of Europe; co-ordination of sectoral strikes; development of campaigns and
mobilizations around partial demands; and establishment of a comprehensive
social programme. But above all, these trade-union problems immediately raise
the necessity of a political strategy for the workers' and social movement, and
an alternative to the existing society and state institutions (see the
resolutions of the last World Congress).
We will continue our strategic task of contributing to an active
trade-union movement in Europe, through activity in the major trade-union
federations in the European Trade Union Confederation, in the radical unions
and all movements and networks linked to the proletariat (for example the
Euromarches movement). Practical links must also be made between union
activists (shop stewards, etc.) to build genuine international solidarity
within giant corporations and their subsidiaries.
[…]
1 Our goal is to form proletarian parties that:
• are anti-capitalist, internationalist, ecologist and
feminist;
• are broad, pluralistic and representative;
• are deeply attached to the social question and steadfastly
put forth the immediate demands and social aspirations of the world of labour;
• express workers' militancy, women's desire for
emancipation, the youth revolt and international solidarity, and take up the
fight against all forms of injustice;
• base their strategy on the extra-parliamentary
struggle and the self-activity and self-organization of the proletariat and the
oppressed; and
• take a clear stand for expropriation of capital and
(democratic, self-managed) socialism.
[…]
2 The struggle for such parties will go through a series of
stages, tactics and organizational forms, specific to each country. Such an
anti-capitalist recomposition must pursue a key objective from the outset:
creating an effective, visible polarization between it and all the forces loyal
to social neo-liberalism (social democracy, post- Stalinism, ecologists,
populists) in order to accelerate their crisis and give it a positive outcome.
This requires:
• the presence of significant political forces, in which
revolutionary marxist currents collaborate with important or emblematic
currents or representatives who are breaking with reformist parties without
necessarily arriving at revolutionary marxist positions;
• a respectful but close relationship with the social
movement, where the recomposed organisation puts forward the movement's demands
and actions;
• a formation recognized as representing something real
in society, breaking the monopoly of parties loyal to social-neo-liberalism,
thanks to the presence of elected representatives in assemblies on the local,
regional national and (possibly) international (European) level elected by
universal suffrage;
• a pluralist functioning that goes beyond simple
internal democracy in a way that fosters both convergence and discussion,
allowing for the functioning of a revolutionary Marxist current as an accepted
part of a broader whole.
3 The experience of the last ten years shows that the
non-sectarian, revolutionary left can play a key role in holding the line and
keeping to a simultaneously radical and unitary orientation of this kind,
combining extra-parliamentary action and electoral representation. In order to
attain this goal, it has to follow a complex course made up of various stages
and detours that enable it to accumulate forces, clarify the stakes step by
step, re-activate militant milieus and patiently build links with the social
movement.
Three major lessons of the past decade must be incorporated into
our tactics from the beginning of this new political cycle:
• no broad left current in the established parties has
organized itself and put itself forward as a vehicle for anti-capitalist recomposition:
• left-wing tendencies in social democracy are timid,
not very reliable, and not very coherent;
• the large 'surviving' Communist parties are
approaching their end, their stands against neo-liberalism have not led to an
anti-capitalist political project and a democratic, pluralist mode of
functioning (with the exception of Rifondazione), and no left-wing,
non-Stalinist, nationally structured tendency has emerged;
• the major Green parties have not succeeded in playing
the part of a real political and social alternative. Some of them (such as the
German Greens) have definitively gone over to the side of the bourgeois state,
and internal oppositions in these parties are not leading to the organization
of a true, left-wing, social-ecologist opposition.
4 This does not mean that there is no interest or potential
for anti-capitalist recomposition inthese parties and thesocial movement. The
recomposition takes diverse forms. Our conclusion should not be to turn away
from these parties and their activists. On the contrary, a broader
recomposition in their directionthrough a systematic policy of common work and
convergence is indispensable to creating a very broad pole of attraction to
defeat social-neo-liberalism. But the crucial conclusion that flows from our
experience is that, more than ever before, recomposition will depend on the
growth of a strong, independent pole of attraction and an external relationship
of forces that can attract and organize such sympathies.
Only the revolutionary left is currently in a position to take the
initiative for anti-capitalist recomposition and keep it on course with a
radical, pluralist, socially rooted project with a mass character. But this
implies a deep, well-thought-out rejection of sectarianism in practice. It also
means that rapprochements inside the revolutionary left can only be envisaged
in the framework and through the common experience of this anti-capitalist
recomposition.
5 Nevertheless, the issue of the regroupment of the
revolutionary forces is put firmly on the agenda by these processes, since the
revolutionary left cannot be a catalyst for broad regroupments unless it
addresses its own divisions.
6 As the FI contributes to a vast reorganization of the
workers, social and popular movements on a world scale, with the perspective of
forming a new internationalist, pluralist, revolutionary, activist force with a
mass impact, we must simultaneously strengthen our organization. This is not in
order to compete with and defeat other international revolutionary currents,
but in order to contribute as much as possible to building a new force while
clarifying the essential theoretical lessons to be drawn from the experience of
20th century revolutions.