Documents : Fifteenth World Congress - 2003
Role and tasks of the Fourth International
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6. BUILDING BROAD ANTI-CAPITALIST PROLETARIAN PARTIES
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.
In the case of Latin America, our objective is to build broad,
pluralistic anti-capitalist parties and/or regroupments with a real presence in
the proletariat and the social movements, that express a resistance to
neo-liberalism in the framework of the struggle against capitalist
globalisation. As a revolutionary Marxist current, we are in favour of building
a "hard core" of the left. This perspective cannot be successful if
it takes the place of strategic thinking, radical action, and bold initiatives,
through a sectarian attitude of "self-affirmation" striving to
maintain "our own identity".
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.
7. REFOUNDING THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME
1 The new historical period of capitalism and
revolutionary socialist struggle will call for a genuine programmatic
refoundation, which will take the full measure of the structural, social and
cultural upheavals both within capitalism and among the exploited classes and
oppressed layers. This refounded programme will include a critical balance
sheet of the first 150 years of the workers’ movement and of the experience of
the first victorious socialist revolutions and their degeneration. It will take
account of the current state of consciousness among the popular masses and link
up with their demands and modes of action and organization. We will contribute
as much as possible to this programme, while keeping in mind that a
transitional programme like this for the 21st century will not be the
prerogative of one group or specific current. It will not be the result of a
hurried, academic exercise. As was the case with the successive transitional
programmes since Marx’s day, a vast, free discussion, collective elaboration,
’globalized’ common work, critical and self-critical debate, and openness to
ongoing and future social experiences will all be necessary. This is a real
challenge, inasmuch as political struggles among currents and organizations are
not about to come to a halt, and every activist organization needs to respond
immediately to the demands of its militant work.
2 In the programmatic and strategic discussion,
taking in all the problems raised by the struggle for socialism, we will foster
debate on:
i) The need to formulate a universal programme of
social needs and human rights, starting from the world ecological crisis, the
generalized social regression, the dire poverty of the majority of human
beings, and the social inequalities within the world of labour.
ii) The necessity of an eco-socialist programme,
fully integrated into the anti-capitalist struggle, as the only radical
alternative to the ecological catastrophes resulting from the destructive logic
of the capitalist system (against the greenhouse effect and the ’market in
pollution rights’, for an end to nuclear power and a moratorium on GMOs).
iii) The existence of private ownership of wealth
and the means of production and exchange, which forms the base of a dominant,
owning class, as an obstacle to the achievement of this social programme. This
class’s expropriation for the benefit of humanity is thus an unavoidable
necessity.
iv) In the face of a superficial, moralistic
analysis based on a vision of ’the poor against the rich" and ’the excluded’
we put at the heart of our analysis the exploitation of women and men as blue
and white-collar workers, salaried managers, unemployed, marginalized and
excluded, that is to say the wage-earning class which is obliged to sell its
labour power to an employer.
v) The decisive role for anti-capitalist and
socialist strategy of the globalized waged class, which we need to deploy a
renewed, broad concrete analysis of in order to highlight its unity against
capitalist exploitation and oppression. The analysis must include the
multiplicity of the working class’s concrete situations, its methods of
struggle, its immediate demands and forms of organization.
vi) The decisive role of the right to
self-organization of women and lesbians and gay men.
vii) The necessity of democracy, transparency and
popular control as principles and practices, understood as active intervention
by society - and particularly by its exploited and oppressed parts, as a
critical element of the Stalinist experience, and as a radical questioning of
bourgeois democracy; and
viii) A conception of the Party that takes account of
historical experience and of the new social and cultural conditions in
societies and among the exploited classes.
ix) The necessity of the struggle for power, who
will engage in that struggle and what are its most fundamental features.
3 In Latin America in particular, this
’transitional programme’ involves questions such as:
the nature of economic recolonisation and the question
of national sovereignty (concrete anti-imperialism);
reformulating regional integration processes as
alternatives to the FTAA (proposals for a real development);
the non-payment of the debt;
peasant movements’ fight for land and radical agrarian
reform, indigenous communities’ struggle for their rights or for autonomy, and
finally, the role of peasants’ and indigenous people’s movements in creating
new anti-capitalist political forces in Mexico, Bolivia, in Ecuador and
elsewhere;
the struggle against privatisations;
the question of political democracy, getting back
rights that had been taken away, and of the nature, scope and limits of a
participatory democracy outlook on the local or municipal level (the Latin-
American left governs capitals and huge cities as well as small villages in
Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia);
the relation between urban and rural struggles;
the relation between social resistance and political
organisation;
the new forms taken on by the ’subjects’ that are
emerging from the fragmentation of the working class (piqueteros, neighbourhood
assemblies, land occupations and housing co-operatives;
self-defence experiences, neighbourhoods struggling
for public services, youth spaces, women organising self-subsistence, different
barter economics experiences);
the experience of social and political alliance
policies.
8. TOWARDS A NEW MASS REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONAL
1 The construction of the Internationals that
have existed in history has been linked each time to new tasks linked to
large-scale social and political developments. This new political cycle of
reorganization poses from the beginning the problem of a new mass revolutionary
anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist International. This ’new internationalism’ has
been appearing in force since Seattle. A series of events had prepared this
since the turning point of 1989-91: the emergence of neo-Zapatismo, the
Bastille Appeal that launched the long campaign for cancellation of Third World
debt, the Euromarches, the ’chain’ of counter-summits opposed to the
institutions of capitalist globalization (IMF and World Bank), the long series
of meetings in which ’civil society’ (often meaning NGOs) confronted the
official summits (Rio, Beijing, the Copenhagen Social Summit and so on. After
the two meetings of the WSF in Porto Alegre and the perspective of a third
meeting in Brazil, coming after the regional Social Forums, a process of
organizational and programmatic consolidation is underway. At the same time a
process of clarification and differentiation has appeared under the impact of
major world political events.
2 Unlike the ’internationalist’ period in the
1960s and 1970s, this is not primarily a solidarity movement or political
support to a social or democratic revolutionary process. Its motive force comes
from a resistance movement, necessarily international by its very nature,
against a new stage of internationalization of capitalism, its policies and its
institutions. At this stage it appears as a ’new’, very legitimate social
movement, borne by social and political forces outside the control of the
traditional bureaucracies in the workers’ and popular movements. It also sets
itself apart from international revolutionary organizations and generally
refuses to include political parties. At the same time this movement is deeply
political. It has imposed a spectacular polarization against the ruling
classes; relaunched an anti-capitalist perspective and a hope of emancipation;
and created a public space that is both centralized and decentralized, in which
analytical thinking is combined with political confrontation and activist commitment,
a terrain where political currents exist de facto.
We cannot imagine the qualitative step towards the creation of a
new International without an important contribution from these new forces.
These important but diverse forces cannot be formed into a new international
political organisation at this stage but they can be strengthened politically
through a process of experience and clarification and by the intervention in
these debates of the revolutionary forces, in particular the FI.
3 Pluralistic left-wing, anti-capitalist/
anti-imperialist regroupments are still weak and informal. Due to the absence
of a major social upsurge it is difficult for them to escape historical inertia
and their totally ineffective ’political culture’ in order to tackle the new
stage of class struggle. (The left wing of social democracy is weak; the
various currents that have emerged from CPs are in a programmatic impasse and
still tend towards Stalinist practices; and most revolutionary organizations
are congenitally sectarian.) What initial progress has been made is mainly at
the level of particular regions or continents: the Sao Paulo Forum in Latin
America, whose initial dynamic has died down; the continued importance of the
Brazilian PT; the modest Conferences of the Anti-Capitalist Left in Europe; and
some gatherings in Asia. Faced with the European Union, the perspective of an
’anti-capitalist’ European party is on the agenda.
Only direct clashes between the ruling class and the proletariat,
only the masses’ struggle to defend their living and working conditions, will
be capable of shaking up the relationship of forces, putting down social roots
and producing the activists who can build, at the national level, a new
political force - anti-capitalist, internationalist, feminist - in the
perspective of building a new International.
The current movement against globalization has created hope, a
reference point and a major focal point, but as it is now it will not
constitute the initiating force of a new International. The political and
strategic discussions reflecting existing political differentiations will
become more and more present in this movement and make the new phase a lot more
complex.
4 Third, there has been a major development within
and among some of the currents that originated or identify with ’Trotskyism’.
All these organizations, including the FI, have had to make a big effort to
respond adequately to the new world situation, at the level of analysis,
orientation and activity. The capacity to respond to this, in time and in good
conditions, has had an impact on the continuity of all these currents. Today
there is a very great diversity of groups originating or identifying with
’Trotskyism’. Some have maintained relatively coherent international
organizations, while others have broken up into national or federated groups.
This is even truer of ex-’Maoist’ organizations. Unification of ’Trotskyists’
or ex-Maoists, in the name of a programme or politics turned towards a past
epoch of the revolutionary workers’ movement and based on defending an
organization’s record, cannot be useful in any way to a regroupment or even a
fusion. Rapprochement between organizations identifying with Marxism and the
socialist revolution can make sense only in relation to the battles, the real
movement and the tasks of today and the future.
We note that there are these three internationalist
politico-organizational developments exist alongside each other: the ’real
movement’ against globalization and its socio-political currents; the
convergence of anti-capitalist and pluralist political currents; currents of
the revolutionary left. This situation can continue for a whole period.
However, where agreements and rapprochements are possible, we will take unitary
initiatives to advance towards serious regroupments.
9. THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW
1 The FI was born resisting the greatest defeats
of the proletariat and workers’ movement: fascism, Stalinism and world war. Our
sections were tiny minorities in the international workers’ movement and
repressed by all the counter-revolutionary forces (social democrats, Stalinists
and fascist or democratic bourgeois states). They did not succeed in
transforming themselves into real (revolutionary) parties. Despite fighting in
the front lines of many revolutionary and daily struggles, they were reduced to
commenting on events and defending the gains of revolutionary Marxism from
bureaucratic falsification. In the 1970s, revolutionary upsurges around the
world made it possible to think that the time had come to advance towards a
mass international. The FI was fighting at the time with other international
Trotskyist groupings (Lambertists, Morenistas, the Militant current, the
British SWP/"state capitalist" current) over which was the legitimate
"Trotskyist" current (and the same fight took place inside the FI
between the US SWP and the international majority). Even if the FI never
succumbed to the kind of sectarian delirium that other groupings did, it
nonetheless considered itself the legitimate political vanguard, the kernel
around which the recomposition of a revolutionary international would take
place.
2 The change of period that became evident in the
1980s, the FI’s crisis and the fall of the Wall led to a swing of the pendulum
in the other direction, which even risked threatening the FI’s existence. Our
militant response to the enormous reactionary offensive of the 1980s and 1990s
didn"t lead us into the kind of sectarian hardening that takes refuge in
incantations of socialist propaganda, parasites on mass movements and
self-centred self-proclamation. Organizations that fell into this did not avoid
serious internal crises. The FI too has paid the organizational price for the
general retreat of the international workers’ movement, but it managed to get
through the reactionary period while maintaining its organizational unity and
political unity, by:
developing a critical, up-to-date Marxism;
a no-holds-barred discussion on the ’balance sheet of
the century’;
internal practices encouraging continuity in
discussion and a confrontation among different analyses in response to the
major formative events of the new world situation;
keeping itself rooted and on the front lines of the
workers’ and social movement (nationally and internationally);
systematic unitary work in the movements; and
a unitary and radical approach, in particular in the
struggle for pluralist, anti-capitalist recomposition.
3 Today the situation of the FI, as an
organisation, can be defined as:
an international organisation of revolutionaries based
on the method of the Transitional Programme and the strategy and tactics
flowing from it;
an unrivalled body of programmatic references,
collective and individual political experiences with a capacity for elaboration
and reflection particularly on issues such women’s oppression, gay and lesbian
oppression, issues which have been little developed by other revolutionary
currents, with sections in several countries based on the needs of the working
class of the region;
an organisation which respects the autonomy of the
mass movements and their democracy and which genuinely allows tendencies to
function within it;
and thus a living tool, but a very unstable one given
the weakness of its parts and the difficulty of rebuilding a coordination and
leadership structure corresponding to its activist reality. The fact that we
have preserved this structure and that it is undoubtedly the only international
grouping of its kind is a precious asset in the new political period as new
activist generations emerge.
4 Our main task as the FI is to contribute to a
vast reorganization of the workers’, social and popular movement on a world
scale, with the perspective of forming a new internationalist, pluralist,
revolutionary, activist force with a mass impact. This perspective will
inevitably mean going through a long process of political experiences and
clarifications.
This does not imply in any way a weakening or dissolution of our
organization. On the contrary, we want to strengthen it, not in order to defeat
other international revolutionary currents, but in order to contribute as much
as possible to this goal: building a new force while clarifying the fundamental
theoretical lessons to draw from the experience of the revolutions of the 20th
century.
5 Throughout this whole transitional period, we
will contribute a response on 3 levels:
First, in the movement against globalization as well
as in the trade-union movement and other social movements, we are fighting for
a ’united front’ in struggles and mobilizations and to create and solidify
movements, while at the same time we participate in programmatic and political
debates. We favour the creation of internationalist, anti-capitalist mass
movements around their respective objectives.
Second, on the party level, depending on the concrete
situation in each region or continent, we will push actively for joint work by
anti-capitalist political forces, which could take various forms.
Third, on the revolutionary left we will engage in a
more systematic and more general dialogue through bilateral meetings and by
taking part in internal and public meetings of other currents with whom we
share an understanding of the current world situation and of our major
orientations and tasks.
6 We observe two things. First, there is a
significant gap between our underlying influence within movements and the
political and organizational strengthening of our organizations. The diffuse or
personal ideological influence we have is reflected very little or not at all
in a strengthening of the party. The quality of our analyses, our activists’
commitment and promotion of a socialist outlook are clearly not enough. Second,
the process of repoliticization now under way does not lead people
spontaneously to join parties (revolutionary or not). This obstacle is
particularly major among young people.
The conclusion is that a revolutionary Marxist organization must
be capable of demonstrating that it has a specific political function to fulfil
in day-to-day activity, mass work and the movements. This requires in
particular more regular, sustained propaganda for our ideas, more consistent
agitation, a commitment to political and strategic debate, and a reinforced
organizational system to back all this up. In short, this requires a political
autonomy that distinguishes us and identifies us clearly in society, in the movements
and by contrast to other ideological or political currents in the social
movements.
7 This autonomy is not meant to inaugurate a
sectarian round of denunciations, polemics or ’entryist’ operations aimed at
short-term gains. It starts out from the traditional understanding, specific to
our revolutionary Marxist current, of the relationship between mass movement
and Party: (i) respect for the movements’ autonomy and internal democracy,
which includes an understanding of their specific sensibilities and mechanisms
of functioning, and (ii) a rejection of the conception of an enlightened,
arrogant vanguard that parasites on or subjugates the movement.
Between simply going along with the movement or becoming a
self-proclaiming, ideologically sectarian parasite on it there is another path
which differentiates us from sectarian radical currents that latch onto young
people seeking strong revolutionary answers and a militant involvement. Our
response cannot be the same as theirs.
8 But our main problem is not in general
sectarianism, but a kind of political and organizational behaviour that
undervalues or dilutes revolutionary Marxist organization. We need to rectify
this on three, combined levels:
an orientation, profile and political behaviour
independent from the movements;
a more visible and coherent intervention;
this will require better internal coordination.
9 We need a strengthened international leadership
structure that aims to fulfil the tasks described below.
The reform of the Statutes, based on our experience of recent
years, provides a coherent basis, which will encourage both ongoing, open and
critical debate in the central leadership body, the International Committee,
and reinforce the role of the Executive Bureau, as an active centre for the
co-ordination of work.
The IC (former IEC) must continue to play its role as the centre
of gravity in an ongoing debate with counterposed positions. This debate is all
the freer inasmuch as the statutes codify an autonomy of national sections that
no longer imposes any obligation to carry out the positions adopted by the IC
majority. It is even more open given the presence, at the IC, of outside
organizations that take part in our discussions without any organizational
commitment towards us.
The EB will have the key task (alongside leadership in terms of
day-to-day administration, finances, the press, inside and outside contacts) of
building stronger links with and among national organizations, and the cadre of
organizations. This will take form in terms of elaboration, initiatives,
coordination and public positions on issues. The development of the press of
the International (magazines, electronic bulletins, website) is a priority.
For the EB, this means first of all taking advantage of the
improved health of several national sections in order to strengthen the Bureau
with comrades integrated in leaderships of national organizations, (especially
European, due to the geographical proximity). Then, the EB will have to build
or strengthen the role of working structures, some at the European level,
others more clearly international (workplace, anti-globalization, women, youth,
grassroots movements). Following the development of the regional/continental
dimension of globalized capitalism, we must contemplate working structures that
correspond to concrete conditions (Europe, Latin America, Asia). Given the
development of the EU as a state-type structure, a specifically European task
is to establish a true European leadership able to respond to the multiple
necessities imposed by the EU framework, by increasing the weight and rhythm of
existing bodies (the European PBs and Secretariat).
All these structures should play simultaneously a coordinating
role, an initiating role, and the role of collective political elaboration on
the many global issues of the day. They must also allow for the development and
construction of national organizations and strengthening of links among section
leaderships.
The Women’s Commission will in particular ensure:
feminist coverage and the publication of articles by
women in our international press;
feminist education at the international school;
support to sections trying to introduce positive
action policies, and
work to integrate a feminist perspective in our
anti-globalization and antiracism/ immigration work through close collaboration
with the corresponding structures.