IV Online magazine : IV351-2 - Summer 2003

Statutes of the Fourth International

PREAMBLE

1 The Fourth International - an international organisation struggling for the socialist revolution - is composed of sections, of militants who accept and apply its principles and programme. Organised in separate national sections, they are united in a single worldwide organisation acting together on the main political questions, and discussing freely while respecting the rules of democracy.

2 The aim of the Fourth International is to help the awakening of political consciousness and to help the organisation of the proletariat and other classes exploited by imperialism in all countries, in order to abolish capitalism with its oppression, poverty, insecurity, its wars and bloodshed. It seeks to establish a democratic socialist society, based on the principle that the emancipation of the working class and all the oppressed and exploited will be the "the work of the workers themselves", the first step to a future classless society. In order to ensure, in a democratically planned economy, an enduring peace, social equality, the defence of the environment, the struggle against all oppressions, and human solidarity.

3 The Fourth International seeks to incorporate in its programme the progressive social experiences of humanity. It bases itself, by keeping them alive, on the gains of the revolutionary Marxist movement drawing the indispensable lessons from the Paris Commune, the October 1917 Revolution in Russia, the gains and discussions of the first four congresses of the Third International, the struggle and the elaboration of the Left Opposition to Stalinism, the Transitional Programme adopted at its Founding Congress in 1938, and the key programmatic documents adopted by its congresses since then.

4 It is with this transitional approach, starting from immediate struggles to the break with capitalism and the bureaucracies that the Fourth International turns to the future in fighting (for):

  For the immediate and transitional demands of the wage-earners.

  For democratic rights and public freedoms.

  For a revolutionary break with capitalism; for the replacement of the bourgeois state by producers’ own state administration; for the growing over, in the dominated countries, of democratic and national struggles into revolutionary, anti-capitalist ones.

  For democratic socialism based on the social property of the social means of production, the self-organization of workers, the self-determination of peoples and the protection of public liberties, with the separation of parties and the state.

  For the unity of the mass, people’s and working class movement on democratic basis, respecting multi-partyism, the diversity of tendencies and ensuring independence vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie and the state.

  For extending self-organization and respect for democratic rights in the struggles.

  Against all parasitic bureaucracies (Stalinist, social-democrat, trade union, nationalist...) dominating mass organizations.

  Against women’s oppression and for an autonomous women’s movement. o Against oppression of lesbians and gays and all forms of sexual oppression.

  Against national oppression, for the respect of the right to self-determination and the independence of oppressed peoples.

  Against racism and all forms of chauvinism.

  Against religious particularisms and for the separation of religion and state.

  For the environment from an anti-capitalist and anti-bureaucratic perspective.

  For active internationalism and international anti-imperialist solidarity, for the defence of the working masses’ interests in every country, with no exclusions, no sectarianism, without any submission to diplomatic or utilitarian considerations.

  To build revolutionary, proletarian, feminist, democratic parties of active members in which the rights of free expression and tendency are granted and guaranteed.

  To build a mass, pluralistic, revolutionary International.

5 The national sections constitute the basic organisational units of the Fourth International. The aim of every national section is to bring together all the forces which share our common goals to build a mass revolutionary Marxist party capable of playing a decisive role in the class struggle within the country to a successful conclusion in a socialist victory. This is the means through which the Fourth International aspires to achieve its great emancipating goal since an international organisation does not replace or substitute for a national leadership in acting in a revolution.

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