Germany)- will not escape this dialectic of recomposition, which will impose a broad renewal on the level of programme, system of organisation, and more generally of political behaviour on them too.
This transitory aspect of political regroupment does not lead to a provisional presence for us, on the look-out for the first chance to go over to a tactic of independent construction. We must wholeheartedly participate in the regroupment as long as it corresponds to the function we have assigned it.
As for the tactic of independent party-building, that of recomposition brings its own risks, which we have to be aware of from the start: adaptation to the rhythms, the language, to the mode of intervention of the regroupment; the risk of our intervention being paralysed in the case ot an important political disagreement; losses in terms of memory and capacity for autonomous organisation, getting bogged down in meandering debate with our partners to the detriment of abroad vision of society and the workers movement, etc.
4.7. The tactic of political regroupment is not in opposition to the construction of our organisation -on the contrary, it aims to strengthen
4.7.1. The activity of our organisation is an indispensable condition for its success. Thus there can
* The political situation in imperialist Europe be no question of dissolving our organisations. Obviously, they have to be redefined in the framework of this tactic.
4.7.2. There are three good reasons for opposing any notion of dissolving our organisations.
First, and fundamentally, because the recomposition / regroupment does not on its own solve the problem of building a revolutionary party. It only creates another framework hybrid and transitory — for us to move forward in today's particular period. Our political regroupment tactic demands the retention of a broad perspective of big class battles and the emergence ot a new mass revolutionary party.
Second, in as much as the regroupment is a success, its open, broad and radical left character is not guaranteed. Neither is a non sectarian orientation to the big reformist organisations of the workers and social movement guaranteed. Getting through the political and organisational obstacles requires a big analytical and leadership capacity.
Finally, the recomposition by definition will include several currents and sensibilities with different political coherences. Internal political struggle will at times be inevitable, particularly when members are elected to positions in the institutions or during big social or programmatic battles.
New political and organisational differentiations will take place inside the regroupment and also outside, notably through the practical tests that the class struggle imposes.
4.7.3. Participation in a regroupment requires that we have a clear political project and a precise organisational system, defining our priorities, our activities and our system of organisation.
Despite the resemblances, the regroupments on the agenda are not to be identified with entryism (as in the 30's or 50-60's). This may be because the regroupment is limited to the point where we directly have strong political and practical responsibilities (Enhedsliste -Denmark; Solidarité -Switzerland; Gauches Unies -Belgium, etc.), or because we directly join a bigger party but which is nothing like a classical Stalinist or social democratic party, and that we loyally join in the construction of (e.g. Rifondazione, IU, etc.). Nevertheless, we are conscious ot the limits of the political programme and the uncertainties of the political dynamic which regroupment project today. We have to start from a realistic diagnosis under this double point of view. This can lead to being concerned with three autonomous politico-organisational priorities of our current (as it participates in a regroupment project):
• a journal (or other form of press)
to develop our point of view on the current political situation
• a programme of Marxist education.
• an activity (if necessary: an organisation) amongst youth, motivated by a consideration as to the precise paths of its political involvement today.
The fundamental idea is to acquire a strong (on our scale) politicoorganisational instrument which does not leave us without the political means to guarantee an autonomous intervention should that prove necessary.
4.8. The policy of recomposition oriented towards other lett currents to the left of Social Democracy should not turn us away from the big reformist organisations in the workers movement, in deep crisis, and new turns in the socio-political conjuncture.
4.8.1. First, because the traditional reformist organisations, even in crisis and in decline, still largely represent the majority of workers and in a lesser respect, of youth. They continue to organise an important part of the politically active sectors on the left. The weakened traditional unions remain (with rare exceptions) the main and unavoidable instrument for the defence of material interests, and they continue to organise the vast majority of workers active in the interests of their fellow workers. Even parties like the PRC and the IU (without talking about the German PDS) remain a minority amongst the social vanguard.
4.8.2 It is very unlikely that the reformist leaderships will remain inactive faced with big events in political and social life: big attacks by the bosses against the union movement, the threat of the extreme right or attacks on democratic freedoms, the dead-end of neo-liberal politics and partial economic upturns, etc. The reformist parties and/or union bureaucrats could take important including regroupments of the whole of the left. This would immediately challenge any regroupment to the left of Social
4.8.3. Although the emergence of a broad, solid anti-capitalist left in the Socialist Parties is not completely ruled out at this stage, this does not at all exclude new political differentiation and conflicts inside the social democratic apparatus (in the unions or between the political and trade union sector). Their political content will be restrained and polarisation limited (and without comparison to the battles of the "bureaucratic left" of the 20's, 30's or 60-1970's). But coming from the top of the workers movement, such a conflict will have a big impact on working people. It could reactivate and (re)politicise a big layer of working class militants and push them to join the debate.
If this happens, it will create new conditions for political recomposition, including for the alternative left.
4.9. The policy of regroupment/ recomposition today concerns a limited circle of politicised militants of a particular generation and with a degree of experience.
The passage of the initial recomposition to a real launch and "refoundation of Socialism" will imperatively depend on two factors:
(1) the eruption on the social scene working recomposition should address itself to the most conscious and energetic elements.
(2) the eruption on the political scene of a new generation. It will candidly cut out what appears obsolete in the heritage handed down to it.
As revolutionary Marxists, we put this battle for the "refoundation of Socialism" in the perspective of the formation of a mass revolutionary Socialist party.
*
Our tasks in imperialist Europe
LIUDIRNTEE SHESTE
BUNKELA POLINED ASTERITE
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 37
1. OUR GENERAL TASKS IN THE PERIOD before us are the following:
1) to be part of the struggles, mobilisations and resistance against the capitalist-imperialist counter-offensive at every level, as much on the national as the international plane, and play an important role in the mass organisations;
2) to struggle to reverse the disastrous neo-liberal orientation which today dominates the workers' movement under the aegis of the social democracy, and progress in the elaboration of a left programme and political perspective;
3) to intervene actively in the historic crisis of the traditional workers' movement to advance towards a new political force — anti-capitalist and socialist — which responds to this crisis and the demands of the new objective situation. 2. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST unemployment has become permanent trait in the countries of imperialist Europe. It has had disastrous effects — social, political and moral - on the whole of society and notably on youth. The bourgeoisie has neither the capacity nor the will to resolve this appalling problem. The Кома ци suppression of unemployment is then at the heart of any alternative strategy. Knowing the current relations of forces between Capital and Labour, in society but also in every workplace, our response cannot be routinist. It does not only concern the workers and the unemployed. The suppression of this mass unemployment must become a stake for the whole of society. It must mobilise all its resources of resistance, energy and creativity. It must base itself on the workers and trade unions movement, but also go beyond it, addressing itself to the whole of the Delegate votes For: 65.5% Against: 15.5% Abstentions: 14.0% Not voting: 5.0%
NON •ASPHYXIE TAIRE social movement. The solution proposed cannot be routinist.
The right to a job for all is both a social and a democratic demand, for it is the road to a decent income, a useful place in society, a recognition as citizen. As revolutionary Marxists, we take it up in all its subversive potential in relation to the current dominance of the market economy; it obligates a global reversal of political priorities and consequently a social revolution. The struggle for the reduction of working hours presents itself under different aspects. In the first place, the demand for "the reduction of working hours without loss of wages and with compensatory hiring" can take several concrete forms as response, either to a reduction imposed by the bosses or by the neo-liberal policy of "work sharing or as part of the list of demands made by the trade union movement during collective conventions in and enterprise
A second aspect concerns the possibility, at certain times, of creating the widest united front, including with the reformist leaderships, around a unifying slogan of "35 hours without loss of pay" to be realised through legislation. It amounts in this case to a slogan of a more limited social impact, even if it could be a trampoline to retake the offensive on this terrain, to unify all the sectors of the working class in its exceedingly various statuses and to reinforce the global relation of torces. But these two types of "reduction of working hours" do not really suppress unemployment at the scale of society. From whence a third aspect of the struggle, namely a very much more radical reduction of working time (say to 32 or 30 hours) — without loss of salary and with compensatory hiring. A tough demand, efficient and inspiring, it appears unrealisable given the current relation of forces. It can only be convincing if it takes up from the beginning a whole range of social and technical conditions of its implementation; workers (and social) control) over the enterprise in relation to the intensity of work, the environment and the economic finality; reorganisation of labour to assure its feasibility from the technical-economic point of view and that of the life of the workers; financial aspects given the unequal conditions of competition (compensation funds); financing of such a plan (which raises the question of taxation).
Such a plan, as global as it is radical, only makes sense on the European
* Our tasks in imperialist Europe level, not only because of the impossibility of putting it into practice in a single country given current economic conditions, but also because it assumes an economic recovery and reorganisation on a vast scale in terms of social needs on the international plane, throughout Europe to begin with. It raises moreover some very much wider questions of society; the meaning of work even; the level of wages maintained in relation to the conditions of existence of the proletariat in the rest of the planet; NOU "ASPHYXIE the mode of
TAIRL consumption and its relation to the alienation of leisure time and the limited resources of the planet; malefemale relations in general and in relation to household work in particular; the role of the public services(notably the collective equipment). In the background there is the question of political and economic power within society, and the necessity of a social revolution.We must approach the other major social questions in the same spirit; social security; the school and permanent training; housing, health, life in the cities. It is at the same time the means to fuse these probiems with the different aspects of the world ecological crisis. 3. THE STRUGGLE OF WOMEN AGAINST their oppression and patriarchal structures will also be a powerful factor of struggle against capitalism and the re-launching of an emancipatory perspective for humanity. The cycle of the feminist movement of the 1965-1980 years was closed by some significant advances; the suppression of legal inequality; the massive presence of women in public life, notably on the labour market; the conquest of a certain economic independence; the entry into crisis and the decline of patriarchal structures, in particular the family. Meanwhile, the women's movement as such has decomposed, notably by the recuperation of a sector of the movement and its integration into the cogs of the bourgeois state, thanks to a certain number of reforms "from above" . Only a small active nucleus of socialist feminists and radical feminists subsists which resists the attacks 38 International Viewpoint against certain gains of the movement. The oppression of women persists, although being displaced; legal equality has not suppressed the social inequality de facto present everywhere in society including in the social movements; inequality of wages for comparable work persists.
Moreover, the prolonged crisis imposes a growing burden on the backs of women and the bourgeois policy puts in question a certain number of gains of the preceding period. In addition to this, there is a crying contradiction between the progress of women on the legal and in part economic and social planes on the one hand and their marginalisation indeed total exclusion as to the political processes and leadership bodies. With the question of work (notably night work, household work) sexual and physical violence (harassment in the workplace, the rape of children and women inside the family), the political democratic question is already a key aspect of these debates (quotas, parity) of the future. International solidarity is manifested by a new raising of consciousness of the role of women in war and massive repression (ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Argentine, Guatemala....). this multitude of resistance has not yet led to the redevelopment of a true overall organised movement, but it is certainly on the order of the day and we should contribute to it with all our forces. This confirms the urgency of the reform of our own organisations so that women can play their role. 4. YOUTH HAVE NOT CEASED TO MOBILISE throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But this mobilisation concerned the great moral questions (the threat of) war (Such as the installation of the missiles); against racism and fascism; aid for the third world; or in a more sectoral sense around the school. It is the ecological question which has penetrated profoundly the two most recent generations, creating a more global political consciousness. All this activity has taken place, in very many countries in total rupture with the ideological climate of 1968. The "market" and "post-Socialist" atmosphere, with a spectacular loss of historic, social and political landmarks, has strongly weighed on the level of radicalisation and the type of politicisation among youth. An enormous distance thus appears between the degree of consciousness political engagement and the revolutionary Marxist programme, except for a very small nucleus of youth. The discredit into which the "market economy" has again fallen after the brief euphoria, reopens a broader space on the properly ideological plane tor a lett, in particular, Marxist explanation.This globally unfavourable evolution contrasts with the fact that the young generation comes up socially against actually existing capitalism. This generation will be the first, for some decades, whose future perspectives will be more modest than those of the former generations, in particular those of their own parents. Moreover, precociously "emancipated" in relation to the tutelage of their parents, it is less able to win its own economic independence, unable to find a stable and complete job. This contradiction creates considerable social tensions which have already led to widespread struggles, but it also provokes a number of acts of despair, unequalled since the post war period (drugs, suicides, flights from the school and the family, total social marginality).
Our intervention among youth, inasmuch as it is in struggle, is a decisive question for the construction of a revolutionary socialist organisation. It must start from the real movement among the youth — its social existence, its cultural behaviour, its forms of organisation and expression, its specific level of radicalisation — and be extricated from the sometimes complicated tactical considerations which our parties need to find their way in the workers' movement today. The organisation international youth camp is a striking success both in the level of participants, the internationalist and enthusiastic spirit, and the recruitment of a layer of youth steeped in this experience. 5. THE LEFT INTELLIGENTSIA HAS massively deserted political engagement and capitulated before neo-liberalism during the 1980s and 1990s. This has constituted a factor of deterioration in the relation of forces for the working class and its anti-capitalist wing. It is all the more important to enter in dialogue with the sectors or individuals who have resisted, and with those who, on their own professional terrain, resent the disastrous effects of the progress of "commodification", passing from an ethical opposition to a wider social
Our tasks in imperialist Europe *
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 39 comprehension, and are susceptible to engagement at the sides of the anticapitalist social movement. 6. WE HAVE A PARTICULAR POLITICAL task in relation to the third world. Beyond efforts of solidarity against repression, of support to the significant struggles and mobilisation to contain imperialist attempts to crush or smother a (semi-) revolutionary breakthrough. We must alert public opinion, put pressure on governments, alert the workers and movements to immediately the terrible poverty which affects a growing part of the ex-colonial countries. The struggle for the cancelling of the debt and against the IMF and the World Bank constitutes a concrete and useful objective for these countries, at the same time raising the of their dependence/ recolonisation and opening the road to new forms of anti-imperialist struggle. 7. OUR ORGANISATIONS ARE STRONGLY involved in the anti-racist and antifascist struggles and movements. The objective must be to place this combat eastern and central Europe (ex-USSR, ex-Yugoslavia) above all if comparison is made with the response to the Gulf War. If the passivity of the workers' movement under reformist leadership is not a surprise, on the other hand, the "peace movement" — active, massive and radical for two decades — has entered into deterioration. Forces in a very small minority, like our own, have tried to react in the context of an indignant but passive public. The pursuit of the International Workers Aid campaign is all the more important, by its exemplary character (both here and in ex-Yugoslavia) and in order to form links with the best elements which resist in ex-Yugoslavia. An analogous activity should be launched against the brutal war of the Yeltsin government against the Chechen people. 9. WE HAVE TO NOTE THE ALMOST TOTAL absence of the active workers movement on the European scale. The
THE CURRENT lead fetter, by solidarity action with strikes, the circulation of information on struggles, on demands, of trade union platforms. Three elements must be singled out;
• the use of European enterprise committees which are multiplying and which, despite all their limits, furnish the means for meetings between (combative) trade union militants;
• persuading trade unions to take European initiatives of co-ordination of their sector (like the telecommunications meeting at Brussels at the beginning of 1995)
working towards demonstration and an assembly of the European left as a social and internationalist alternative at the intergovernmental conference planned for 1996. The construction of an active workers' movement in Europe starts from a modest scale. It necessitates on our part
• a programmatic and political elaboration, going beyond our as yet
ECONOMIC RECOVERY on the European level. This applies in particular to the struggle against the Schengen accord which furnishes by itself a unifying objective. While some very representative networks exist in our respective countries which are coordinated at the level of the EU, to is necessary to note that they have not had the capacity to organise a concerted and combative action. This was and remains our objective. On the level of anti-fascism, the active movement consists of the radical nuclei which act regularly in all the countries and which enable, punctually, an "enlarged" mobilisation thanks to the strong sensibility and openness of the "democratic" and "left" organisations on this question. Some attempts at coordination exist on the European level. Overall there exists a certain level of alertness on which it is necessary to build so as to respond in a united and international manner to the events to come. Given the persistence of the fascist parties and far right and their installation in society and in the state apparatus, an important on political orientation exists in which we must 8. WE HAVE TO NOTE THE EXTREME weakness of the anti-war movement, in relation to the military conflicts in
HAS CREATED OVER 7.8 MILLION JOBS... reason is not technical (absence of material means) but political; the subordination to the national state and the EU which are imposed by social democracy and the (trade union wing) of Christian democracy in the traditional workers movement, which paralyses any extensive action around fundamental demands (like widening of the struggle for the 35 hour week at IG Metall) all European solidarity with a particular struggle (the delocalisation of an enterprise inside the EU) and any overall social alternative at the level of the EU. We must put do all we can to break this
AND I HAVE THREE OF THEM. very general position see the resolution on the EU at this world congress) so as to influence the traditional workers' movement and
• an effort at political and practical rapprochement with those left currents which reject the Maastricht policy of the EU and its member states. 10. THIS ACTIVITY OF OUR ORGANISATIONS — multiple and by definition dispersed - must find its unity and its strength by a political battle to break the neoliberal (and "Europeanist") political programmatic yoke of the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic
* Our tasks in imperialist Europe apparatuses. The credibility of the neoliberal policy does not reside in the strength of its content or in the militant organisational strength of social democracy, but in the difficulties which strike the active and radical left wing of the social and workers' movement; a feeling of the political impotence of the mobilisations and struggles and consequently of alternative programmatic propositions; a lowering of the average "socialist consciousness of the popular masses; a fallback in the
ASPHYXIE F
NON organisational
TAIRE engagement of the practical vanguard; ideological weakening of the radical left; and all this takes place whereas the working class, the women and the youth maintain an exceptionally high level of activity making allowance for the pool socio-economic conditions which persist.It is in this general situation that we must contribute to the programmatic rearmament of the social and workers' movement. This must become a decisive task in the period following the world congress. 11. THIS TASK CANNOT BE CONCEIVED independently of the upheavals affecting the traditional workers' movement. The principal aspects are the following;
• the weakening of the organic and social links of the trade union organisations and the working class and consequently the weakening of the social control of the trade union bureaucracy on its own cadres and militant, and on the class — an unprecedented loss of legitimacy of the class collaborationist and counter revolutionary apparatuses (combination between the historic defeat of Stalinism and the mew stage of organisational, moral and political degeneration of social democracy) which henceforth puts in doubt their capacity to contain future upsurges or social explosions;
• the emergence of political currents and social movements, which do not belong to the historic workers' movement, but possess a critique of bourgeois society and a will for social change.Faced with the wide ranging crisis of bourgeois society, the 40 International Viewpoint historically new situation of the traditional workers' movement, and the potentiality of new extensive upsurges, the response of the revolutionary left, itself struggling for survival as a political factor in the workers' movement and in society, cannot limit itself to propaganda for the construction of a (small nucleus) of the revolutionary party and the revolutionary programme, opposed to the rest of the traditional workers' movement and its reformist variants, to some campaigns which call for the united workers front but which are in fact nothing other than a means of ideological and organisational selfaffirmation.
Before any improbable short term break by social democracy with the neo-liberal and Europeanist line of the last 15 years, before a recurrent polarisation between the social democratic leadership and the trade union movement still capable and obliged to enter into struggle for the important immediate demands - the pertinent political cleavage -profound, broad and practical, affecting the everyday fate of the mass of the workers, women and youth — is not currently between "reform and revolution" but between this consistent neo-liberal policy of the social democracy and an alternative policy which refuses to subordinate the struggle for immediate demands and for radical reforms to the needs of neoliberalism, and which in practice is opposed to the fundamentals of the market economy and its political institutions.
Between social democracy and the revolutionary left there is a vast ideologically reformist current either opposed to or more often "outside" the strategic question of the revolutionary crisis, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of political power by the working class and the organisation of the workers' vanguard in a revolutionary party based on such a programme. It is the product of the decomposition of the social democracy and Stalinism. It is politically heterogeneous and unstable but often very representative of the current social movement.
To the extent that these sectors of this current oppose social democratic policies and are ready to struggle for radical reforms, they constitute a very important element both for the social, political and electoral struggle, for the progressive emergence of a new anticapitalist and socialist programme and for the convergent activities which can bring together these still disparate political currents and forces, opening thus not only some possibilities of unity of action but also an overall debate on political orientation and the need for a new political formation of the working class. It is decisive and vital for our organisations — revolutionary Marxist nuclei - to be participating in or initiating, under an appropriate form depending on the country, this process of re-composition of the social and workers' movement. 12. OUR ORGANISATIONS AND OUR functioning as the Fourth International in Europe must be adapted to this new political situation. This implies above all that we continue in the coming months a reinforcement of the links between our organisations in Europe. Faced with the weakening of the militant and material means of the national organisations, and the distancing of the links between them, it amounts to re-establishing at an elementary level the pooling of our analyses, our political and programmatic propositions, our political-intellectual resources, regularising the financial and material contributions of each national organisation to the international centre, as well as circulating information, generalising the activities of the campaigns already underway (notably making a balance sheet of their weaknesses) to seize the opportunity that the class struggle offers to act in common. This primary reinforcement has become, in the present situation, virtually a prerequisite — if not all the propositions for campaigns of action or the European scale smack of rhetoric. On the organisational level, it is necessary to give priority to the annual meeting of the European Political Bureaux and the two meetings each year of the European secretariat, and to set up the network of regular information between the sections and with the leadership of the International.
Facing the
European Union
CHEMINSS:
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 41
1. THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AND ITS European sections have a clear general approach towards the European Union (EU) and European integration. Far from responding to the social and international aspirations of workers, women, youth and oppressed nationalities, the EU reflects on a regional level the globalization of the world economy. It is an instrument of
RETIRE TOM LADENO, the strongest sectors of big capital for inter-imperialist competition and for an all-out struggle against the European working class and the Third World. In current conditions, the EU means the EMPOST dismantling of the Welfare State, the building of an imperialist fortress and progress towards a supra-national
This Europe is not our Europe. We fight it not in the name of national solutions and the defence of the national (bourgeois) state, which is a reactionary utopia, but in the name of a Europe which is ecological, democratic, egalitarian and based on peace and solidarity. Our struggle against the EU is part of the anti-capitalist struggle for another society - a socialist society. This will be a Europe of the working class and of the free association of peoples, open to the East and in solidarity with the South. Such an alternative will not come about through existing state institutions - either national or European. It implies mass activity of the working masses and a major crisis of the EU itself. It therefore requires building and strengthening working-class and social movements on a pan-European level. And it demands a radical break with the dominant social democratic trend in the labour and trade-union movement, whose pro-EUstance is linked to its neo-liberal economic policy.
such a break advancement of this European-wide Delegate votes For: 81.5% Against: 2.0% Abstentions: 7.5% Not voting: 9.0% anti-capitalist alternative, there will be no future for the struggles of workers, women and youth who - whatever their nationality - are mobilising against injustice and rebelling against unemployment and misery, racism and war. The Fourth International and its organisations want to contribute to building this alternative, in the way best suited to each country. 2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE EU REMAINS very contradictory. On the one hand, the project of the European Union is moving forward. It corresponds to the globalization centralisation of the world economy: new countries are joining; the Schengen agreement is being put into practice; the single market is advancing; the member states are working hard to meet the convergence criteria in the Maastricht treaty and there is no single member state (not even the UK) bourgeoisie that calls for abandoning the EMU; various bilateral agreements on concrete topics are being concluded between EU members; the EU is functioning as a strong pole of attraction for European countries outside the EU.
All in all there is a steady, sometimes hidden, progress towards a European federal state, but there are many problems and contradictions. The attempt to create a political union, with elements of a supra-national state, among the key EU countries (Germany, France, Britain, Italy), centred around a common currency, is meeting with big difficulties. There is no existing European nation, and the EU lacks democratic and social legitimacy. Also, there is no cohesive European capitalist class as a social force: the concentration of big capital in Europe goes far beyond European borders, linking up directly with competitors in Japan and the USA And there is a major intrinsic difficulty in transferring important parts of sovereignty of the national imperialist states towards a supra-national imperialist state apparatus.
Ever since the September 1992 crisis of the EU (crisis of the EMS; Pyrrhic victory in the French referendum after
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* Facing the European Union real defeat in the Danish one; the first big workers' struggles in some countries against the social policies implemented in the name of Maastricht), doubts have arisen in important parts of society, about the feasibility and desirability of the EU (the No vote in Norway; the narrow majorities in Finland and Sweden; rising denunciation of the social impact of the Maastricht criteria in the EU's core). The virtual collapse of the EMS in 1993 reconfirmed this. The decisive leap forward to a common currency and a central European Bank is still before us. With only Luxembourg meeting all the Maastricht Treaty's convergence criteria, the common currency will not be introduced in 1997, not even by a "hard" core of the EU. For the next deadline, 1999, there are more doubts expressed and manoeuvres underway. In the meantime, plans to launch the ECU in (part of) the EU before the end of the century are still very much alive. This means that Maastricht-type policies will continue and that in any case we are in for a new battle around dismantling of social gains. Decisions about that will be at the heart of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference, which will have a longer agenda than just the application and adaptation of the Maastricht criteria: a further reduction of national democratic institutions' powers in the EU, with the establishment of European quasi-state structures capable of controlling the more and more numerous and diverse mix of EU states. In addition, there will be attempts to strengthen the common foreign policy, European military cooperation and the common anti-refugee policy. 3. TE EU'S CREEPING CRISIS IN ITS CORE countries is an important lever for a struggle against it. By linking up with these forces and strengthening social struggles that objectively. make realising the Maastricht criteria more difficult, we can build and strengthen movements and campaigns for a left
No and help make enforcement of the
EU's projects more difficult.
Our aim is to defeat the EU from an anti-capitalist standpoint, on the basis 42 International Viewpoint of an internationalist solution of the current crisis, as a result of the struggle of the European working classes. This perspective is sharply opposed to the social-democratic "Europeanist" adaptation to the EU institutions, as well as to nationalist currents inside the right-wing bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties and inside parts of the labour movement.
To advance in that direction we have to take three objective facts into account:
• the real social and political dynamic of the class struggle remains for the next period basically on a national level, in the absence of an active European-wide movement, of social struggles organized on a European scale, of generalised unifying demands with a European-wide audience and given the real stage of European integration
• the real solution of the economic, social and cultural problems of the exploited classes and oppressed masses is impossible on a national level and requires worldwide and continent-wide solutions;
• the concrete struggle against the EU and possible breakthroughs will be determined at first by national conditions in each country. Among these conditions are objective factors (such as the geo-economic and geopolitical situation of each national capitalist country), as well as the average level of internationalist consciousness among working people. It implies among other things that each country has its own mixture of social, democratic and national demands opposing the construction of the EU. Since we are convinced of the unstable situation and nature of the EU project, our task is not limited to making propaganda against the EU and in favour of European-wide immediate demands. We have to start from the EU's creeping crisis and the social mobilisations in different countries, to open the perspective of defeating the EU in practice, and to find transitional solutions, anti-capitalist internationalist. As an international we recognize the need for each ot our national organizations to have a specific tactic to orient the national class struggle against the EU, as well as the need for each national organization to participate in a European-wide strategy, based on the same overall program and the same concrete political alternative for the EU.
4. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT THAT ANY attempt to break in one country with the reigning liberal-monetarist policies would quickly run up against the EU, which is the central organiser of these policies on a European level. Taking its position to its logical conclusion, social democracy closed off any possible way out for the working class by imposing the following dilemma: a break with neo-liberalism means leaving the EU (with all the presumed negative effects). The only possible choice was to accept the EU, in the h of improving its institutions and policies.
The development of a strategic response that can meet this challenge is vital for getting out of the situation of political impotence that currently paralyses the working class and social movements, particularly their left wing No doubt, the absence of such an alternative will not prevent struggles from breaking out, but they will be left without an overall political perspective - lacking dynamism, unity and the will to win. This has become a practical question insofar as the EU is going through a very difficult period from which it will not emerge very soon. Moreover, all big social mobilisations in the future will put the problem on the agenda. This is very important: without a major revival of activity by the working class and its allies, without the beginnings of favourable changes in the relationship of forces on the ground, any alternative plan will be a purely abstract construct.
If the government of an EU country is caught in the grip of a wide-ranging social struggle (comparable to those that have broken out these last few years in Greece, Italy, the Spanish state, Belgium and France) and must retreat on an important point of its austerity agenda, it will inevitably come into conflict with the institutional regulations and main policies of the EU. The matter will then fall into the tangled web of the EU's institutional framework. From this point onwards, the need arises for a left-wing alternative that breaks with the EU's institutions and member governments and that takes up social demands that workers struggling in one country can bring to the attention of the entire EU workforce.
Where would the opening of such a political breach lead? That would depend on a number of factors that cannot be predicted today. On the tactical level, three conclusions seem clear. First, to rely on the change in the
Facing the European Union *
ENSEMBLE DANS L'ACTION RASSEMBLES POUR
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 43 relationship of forces through the activity of "those from below" means taking the social dynamic on the national level as the starting point. Second, we must understand how the political dialectic goes from the national to the European level. Finally, we must consider the opening of a crisis inside the EU institutions as being an obligatory part of the journey towards a social Europe - on condition that this involves a break-up of EU institutions and not their
ENSEMBLE. continuity.
Depending on the situation, country, themes, confrontations and state of the movements, different answers can flow from this approach: instance in the less integrated or relatively new EU member states, the national and international effects on the relationship of forces of a fight with the EU can be maximized by campaigning for withdrawal from the EU, as a first step to radically weaken the EU project. But at all times we maintain a clear, internationalist, European-wide
• In other cases, mainly in the EU's core-countries, where integration is much more advanced
"integration" consciousness exists, it will be necessary to struggle for an immediate program of measures favourable to immigrants, and to make proposals on this basis to the other peoples of Europe in order to outflank the EU and start building a ditterent turope. We should make clear our propaganda that this cannot come about simply through a reform of existing institutions.
It is clear that what is kev in both broadening strengthening social mobilisations throughout Europe. The political axis of the propaganda, the concrete social and economic policies and the manoeuvres and negotiations, is to propose the reorganisation of Europe on other bases: as a continental European space unified on the basis of a model of growth based on social needs, full employment, respect for the environment and international cooperation. A Europe of free association between states and peoples, cooperating for specific solutions and purposes. Obviously, this will require - in one way or another -the building of alternative political institutions in the interest of working people. 5. AS EXPERIENCE HAS SHOWN, POPULAR opposition is based on different motivations. Primarily it reflects a democratic sentiment and a more or less conscious understanding of the anti-social goal of this EU project. It is obvious that the new EU quasi-state in legitimacy. We share the "democratic" criticism of the EU with many others, but we are not falling back on idealizing national parliamentarism.
We connect the lack of democracy in the EU with the anti-social content of EU's policies and with the lack of democracy on a national level in the EU states, and promote an social, ecological, teminist, internationalist alternative based on real democracy and self-organization. This implies, among others. A SOCIAL EUROPE
• An immediate reduction of the length of the working week to 35 hours without a cut in pay, as a tirst step towards the 32 and 30-hour work week; this would be accompanied by a thoroughgoing re-organisation of work and life in society;
• Equal pay for equal work for women; against a reactionary family policy and for the establishment of individual and equal rights in the area of social security; for the development on a broad scale of quality child care and other such facilities; for a women's right to control her fertility;
• For upward harmonisation of social security systems, of norms of safety and hygiene, and of working conditions generally;
• For youth: the right to free studies and guaranteed employment without discrimination;
• A guaranteed minimum wage and a minimum unemployment insurance payment in all countries of the Union;
• Legally recognized trade-union rights in all countries of the Union: the right to strike, right to workplace representation, right to conclude collective work agreements, and setting up of European workplace committees in the multinationals.
• To counter obstruction from speculators and veto's against social policies from financial markets, financial flows and institutions have to be controlled and socialized, Central Banks have to be put under public control and the pro-cyclical monetary straight jacket of the Maastricht treaty has to be destroyed;
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11 SOLDAIRES ET Unes Sócu plain. rén 'augmentation des salai
* Facing the European Union
• Against fundamentalism, for A EUROPE OF SOLIDARITY secularism. AN ECOLOGICAL EUROPE
• For an upward harmonisation of environmental norms and a high level of consumer protection;
• For a policy based on development of renewable energy; against nuclear energy and for the dismantling of all existing nuclear power plants; • Against the logic of more private cars and more roads: policy of public transport, telecommunications and energy. They should be affordable, outside the logic of the market, deliberately oriented towards user needs, and respectful of the environment;
• For a break with the dynamics imposed by the agro-industry and chemical industry, to get an agricultural policy that assures employment and that discourages the massive use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers. A EUROPE OF CITIZENS
1 Against all forms of ethnic cleansing, racism and xenophobia;
1 Equal rights for immigrants from outside the EU, including the right to vote and to stand in all elections;
• Right to asylum, against the discriminating visa-policy, against fortress Europe, abolition of the Schengen treaty;
• Freedom of movement within the EU;
• Equality of social and civil rights for women; equal representation of men and women in all elected state institutions;
• Democratic right to cultural, religious, national, political and ideological expression;
• For recognition of the right to self-determination of peoples and the democratic rights of national and ethnic minorities; 44 International Viewpoint
• Against the ethnic division of Bosnia, which is favoured by the EU. Humanitarian aid, not bombs;
• Unconditional cancellation of the debt of the countries of the South and the East, to stop the mad race towards "structural adjustment", and a break from the market logic imposed by the IMF and World Bank;
• Bilateral trade and development cooperation to respond on a priority basis to the social needs of populations, in favour of development based on the best local conditions, and by working against the law of profit by opposing competition between countries of the South for access to the world market. A EUROPE OF PEACE
1 Elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear military units, as well as of all military units at the forefront of repression, hostage-taking, terror and torture (e.g.. rapid deployment forces, para-commandos, etc.);
• A radical reduction of the military budget;
• Against a European army, for dissolution of the Franco-German brigade, the WEU (West European Union), and NATO;
• Withdrawal of US troops and dismantling of US bases; withdrawal of the fleet of US warships from the Mediterranean, North Sea and Baltic Sea. 6. THE INTER-GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE in 1996 will be the main focus in Europe in the coming period, for which preparations and debates are already underway in all countries. Any new treaty or change in the existing treaties that comes out of the 1996 summit should be put to a vote in referenda in
Many old and new questions will be taken up in the these preparatory discussions and negotiations: internationalist position the neo-liberal measures and the authoritarian policies imposed by the EU on the Eastern European countries negotiating their adhesion, and support and dialogue with the forces in those countries that oppose joining the EU from a left perspective or that develop a socialist alternative to the Maastricht type of European unification;
• We stay opposed to the Schengen agreement and are in favour of an open, humanitarian policy towards people fleeing to Europe from oppression and famine;
• We oppose the military build-up in Europe, the transformation of the West European Union into the European wing of NATO and the establishment of international deployment forces and are in favour of overall de-militarisation.
• We are opposed to the third phase of the Maastricht treaty, because of the uncontrollable very mighty independent European Central Bank and the anti-social policies that are needed to meet the convergence criteria for the common currency, and because the introduction of one single currency has a consequence that the space and means for different social and economic choices on a national level will be reduced dramatically;
• We are against the extension of power of European executive instances and in favour of dismantling the almighty Council of Ministers and the uncontrollable Commission. Contrary to the illusions championed by Social Democracy and others, it is not possible to democratize the EU.
The 1996 conference must in any case be challenged by a huge opposition to the EU's policies. We will work for a pan-European demonstration against EU policies, against the inter-governmental conference and for a different Europe. At the same time, we want to use the occasion of this conference to strengthen the debates in the left and social movements about concrete alternatives to the Europe of the bosses, social insecurity, unemployment, decreasing democracy and ecological destruction. We will fight for a break with the neo-liberal policies of the EU and for a social Europe, with at its heart radical struggle against unemployment. We want to take these initiatives with other left forces and will therefore involve ourselves in the preparation of an international left conference. For the European elections for the European parliament in 1999 we present lists in as many countries as possible, taking into account the concrete conditions of the sections of the International in each country. We will publish a manifesto that presents the common line of the sections in Europe.
Resolution on
Latin America
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 45
INTRODUCTION
The prospects for initiating a process of socio-economic transformation which could lead to a shift in the relationship of forces favorable to the majorities of the population in several Latin American countries, have been postponed Such a prospect could have resulted from the creation of governments by democratic and/or left socialist parties and/or coalitions following several elections held recently in the continent, but their negative results have put off this possibility.
In the economic terrain, the crisis which erupted in Mexico in December 1994 dramatized the effects of the policies that had been pursued since the 1970s. Beyond the particularities of the Mexican case, we have now witnessed the collapse of a model undermined, in the strictly economic field, by its own internal contradictions. The trend towards more and more severe programs of capitalist restructuring, with the resulting worsening of economic, social and political conditions is stronger than ever and must, in the coming years, confront the new forms of struggle and resistance that are arising in the continent.
The political and social instability that emerged in our countries in the 1980s - in the aftermath of the controlled removal of the military dictatorships — combined with the negative effects of the "wasted decade" and the dislocations caused by the reinsertion of the Latin American continent into a new division of the world, has not only not disappeared, but in fact, is leading to a permanent social polarization. from experiencing an expansion of democratic rights and freedoms, we are faced with their reduction and by the Delegate votes For: 73.0% Against: 5.5% Abstentions: 21.5% re-emergence of sharper forms of authoritarianism. 1. THE ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE 1.1. THE "STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT" programs imposed since the beginning of the 1980s have modified the regime of accumulation which had been dominant for 40 years and placed the continent within the framework of a so-called competitive insertion into the world capitalist market. These qualitative transformations imply centering the axis of the accumulation of capital around the development of foreign markets, promoting multilateral integration pacts, decisively altering the relations between labor and capital, as well as advancing in the creation of a new framework of relations between the state, society and the imperialist countries.
This so-called competitive insertion implies a process of integration subordinated to the imperatives laid down by the main imperialist powers, a process which, furthermore, generates and reproduces hierarchical forms of integration among the dependent countries themselves, as the cases of
Mercosur, the free trade agreement between Mexico and the countries of
Central America and the Andean
Pact demonstrate.
The free trade agreement
(NAFTA) signed by Canada, Mexico and the U.S. is part of the latter's strategy to shift the relationship of forces which, in the arena of international competition, has been unfavorable to it in recent years. Such an agreement is different from other processes of economic integration, such as the European Union, since it implies the subordinated integration of an economy as heavily dependent as Mexico's to the dynamics imposed by the main imperialist power.
NAFTA is part of a larger project which seeks to modernize Mexico's capitalist economy, locating it within the international division of labor as a subordinate if privileged partner.
At the same time, the policies promoted by the U.S. with the objective of creating a free trade zone in which it would lay down the rules of the game, has continued to slowly but steadily advance. Although certain commercial sectors in Latin America face, or will face, obstacles in attaining their objectives, the world-wide reorganization of economic blocs is undoubtedly underway in the region.
One of the salient aspects of these agreements is the fact that they do not offer an alternative to the ever-growing economic, social and technological abyss which separates the dependent from the imperialist countries. The key features of the ongoing processes of restructuring and integration is their exclusionary, perverse and conflictual character.
The shift to an externally oriented economy has been coupled with indiscriminate trade liberalization programs which have deeply affected the productive structure as a whole. Deployed during a period in which the imperialist powers have both increased their protectionist measures (limits to steel, textiles, banana exports, "voluntary" accords...) and
* Latin America strengthened their control over the world market (GATT, WTO), trade liberalization leads to the break-up, collapse or disappearance of portions or whole sectors of production and to the exclusion of millions of people from the circuits of production, where it has not led to a real process of deindustrialization, like those experienced by Bolivia, Peru and Argentina itself.
1.2 THE LIMITS AND RANGE OF CAPITALIST restructuring evident. In spite of the growth manufacturing production in most region, which is the basis of the increase in exports, Latin world trade — which fell from 12% in 1950 to 3% in 1992 — has been continually shrinking. The priority given to the development of external markets furthers the consolidation of a sharply-divided society. Similarly, in spite of the efforts of the Latin American bourgeoisies and of the disagreements which exist among certain countries, the main exports from the region continue to be raw materials, which are subjected to a slow but irreversible deterioration, caused by changes in the production process, which limits the ability to maneuver in
The crisis in Mexico and its international repercussions have demonstrated the structural fragility of the new patterns of accumulation.
such as the policies of privatization ot state enterprises, high interest rates, the recessionary atmosphere which reigned in the imperialist countries, the liberalization of financial markets, and the presence of strict wage-control measures, attracted foreign capital, which began to flow back into certain countries (notably into Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina). Nevertheless, only a small portion of that capital was invested productively, a fact which combined with an indiscriminate commercial opening-up, the absence of even the most minimally coherent industrial policies, and the linking of national currencies to the dollar (necessary to attract foreign capital), led to the growth of gigantic commercial deficits as well as to other contradictions which 46 International Viewpoint eventually undermined the economic model of which they were part.
In this sense the financial "rescue" of Mexico, unprecedented in terms of the amounts involved, is completely geared toward safeguarding the interests of international speculative capital, since it will be used to service country's foreign debt. Furthermore, all of this implies an unprecedented and dangerous reduction in national sovereignty (complete U.S. control of the income generated by the sale of Mexico's oil). 1.3. THE FACT THAT MOST COUNTRIES have again experienced positive rates of growth does not mean that they have regained the ground lost during the "wasted decade". The levels of capital investment remain lower than in 1982. Furthermore, the region is again entering a period of recession, as the cases of Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and probably Brazil, already indicate. The increase in GDP rate of growth and the reduction in the rate of inflation, otten presented as the main "achievements"
are taken as being synonymous with an improved standard of living and increased employment. Nothing could be farther from the truth: 8 out of 10 jobs generated in the region between 1991 and 1993 corresponded to the informa sector or to micro-enterprises. There is growth, but wealth is ever more concentrated in the hands of a very small social layer.
During the 1980s poverty grew most strongly. More than 45% (196 million) of the people of Latin America are affected by this scourge, generated by capitalist restructuring. Although more prevalent in rural zones (61% of the people), poverty has increasingly hit urban regions. The favelas in Brazil, poblaciones in Chile, ciudades perdidas in Mexico, ciudades ocultas in Argentina, ranchos in Venezuela etc.
have continued and social a de than an
this implies that people increasingly live in two different social universes, a context in which the excluded constitute a growing majority.
The extension and deepening of poverty is not a minor aspect of ongoing capitalist restructuration. This process has seriously weakened the very social fabric of many forms of resistance. It does not strengthen the left electorally or otherwise. On the contrary, it tends to nurture an increasingly violent atmosphere, to create conditions favorable to the growth of political clientelism, and to reduce all democratic spaces as it denies individuals any guarantees regarding even the most basic living conditions.
Poverty is not gender neutral, as it affects women, "the poorest among the poorest", first. Women are furthermore faced with an unprecedented offensive of the state, the Right, and the Church hierarchy, against their social, reproductive, and sexual, etc., rights. 1.4. IN LATIN AMERICA THE PRIVATIZATION of public enterprises accelerated after 1985. Branches and whole economic sectors, many of them of strategic importance, have been transferred into the hands of private capital. In this fashion, the 1970s notion of the public sector as a sort of "hospital for ailing enterprises" has been abandoned and replaced by the objective, of placing a large part of the nation's wealth in the hands of the "free play of the market" which, in fact, fosters the concentration and centralization of capital in the hands of large monopolies.
Given the extent of the present crisis, a renewed "interventionism" by the state may be expected, as measures taken by several governments already indicate. Obviously, this does not imply a return to the past, nor does it go against the central aspects of the neoliberal project. Nevertheless, a point had been reached at which the lack of state intervention in the economic sphere risked unleashing an explosion nurtured by runaway neo-liberalism.
Subordinated as they are to the imperatives of the world market, the governments of the region are also rushing through the privatization of ands belonging to peasant anc indigenous communities. A veritable agrarian counter-reform has been carried out in Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia and Ecuador which has deprived millions of people of their last remaining means of subsistence. The indigenista ideology, linked to the populist paternalism regimes in place for decades and used by the state to control important layers of the population, now yields its place to a brutal "modernization" which includes the destruction of the indigenous communities of the Amazon, environmental pollution and deforestation suffered by all countries, the destruction of our people's history,
14th World Congress of the Fourth International culture and traditions, "modernization" which is the cause of the social explosions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America and the peasants of Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, etc. 1.5. THE REGION'S FOREIGN DEBT REMAINS one of the kev factors which blocks any possibility of stable long-term growth. The measures taken during the late 1980s, with the implementation of the Brady Plan, have lessened the problem, but do not solve the dilemmas posed by the uninterrupted outflow of capital. Having accepted the discipline of the so-called "Washington consensus", the governments of the region remain committed to servicing the foreign debt - mainly its interest payments — while accepting the framework of country-by-country negotiations. renegotiation accords, a considerable portion of the wealth to be produced early in the next century - and national sovereignty with it — has been pledged away. The foreign debt continues to play an eminently destabilizing role while keeping the door open for the interventions of the IMF and the World Bank as regulators of the economic policies to be implemented. 1.6. This is the context in which a shift in the relations between capital and labor has taken place. Work reorganization, as an attempt to increase the rate of profit through an increase in the rate of exploitation (the principal mechanism for overcoming the crisis), seeks to dismantle the power and presence that workers wielded within the factories and to weaken trade union structures.
neo-liberal discourse promotes free trade, all sorts of obstacles to the free circulation of labor power are introduced, just as internally the bourgeoisies and their governments impose strict controls to prevent wages from rising. Capitalist re-structuring and the continued attacks against past social conquests have permitted profits to recuperate as well as relative improvements in productivity to occur. The latter, however, remain well below the levels required by the world market. The project of relocalization of the Latin American economies in the world market thus largely relies on the limitation and reduction of wages.
Thus, only a few of the region's economies can hope to improve their position - without escaping their situation of dependence — as a result of the process of redistribution of zones of influence. Most are condemned to a passive role as providers of cheap labor power, raw materials or standardized products. In our excluseonary. It promotes a social contradiction between city and country before. Since it depends on the evolution of international factors, its capacity for self-expansion is rapidly exhausted.
The dynamic opened capitalist restructuring generates the for counterposing an alternative economic and social project. Such an alternative project would formulate as its priorities the satisfaction of the peoples, homogenization of wage and social conquests the lines of international norms, the creation of industrial protection programs for certain areas, etc. Nevertheless, no national economic program, advanced as it may be, can hope to solve the crisis if there is no shift in the relationship of forces within the imperialist countries. 2. UNINTERRUPTED SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY. 2.1. The policies deployed by the bourgeoisies and their governments have failed to reconstruct or renew the mechanisms of domination which functioned until the 1970s. Unable to solve old or new problems generated by their situation of dependency and by the ongoing changes on an international scale, they have basically reproduced the worst aspects of any capitalist re-structuration, fueling social polarization. Unemployment, poverty and growing inequality are the main factors which promote social controntation and radicalization.
Exclusion has a direct effect on social and political participation. For those excluded, whose main and immediate concern is survival, it is very
Latin America * difficult to act politically. This implies a systematic — and anti-democratic — reduction of citizenship as such. Nevertheless, this should not be confused with depoliticization, demobilization or the absence of popular initiatives, just as it is neither the case of communities or sectors resisting modernity, but rather of dependent capitalism being structurally incapable of satisfying the needs of the majority. This is why we speak of the perverse and conflictual modernization at the same time that we seek to understand how the terms and forms of struggle have been changing
In the last few years it has been the more radically dispossessed sectors, such as peasants, indigenous peoples, pobladores (shanty-town dwellers), women, old people, the young that have led risings, struggles and revolts which stand out because of the forms they have taken (semi-insurrection, burning of government palaces, national marches), the organizational structures or means they have adopted or generated (collective leadership, processes of self-organization), as well as the demands they have formulated, with the question of democracy, in its widest sense, being at the center of the struggle. 2.2. AS THE CHANNELS TO ADVANCE certain demands have been closed, social explosions like those of Caracas in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Santiago del Estero and Jujuy in Argentina, Paraguay and Ecuador have erupted Although these outbreaks of resistance and agitation do not constitute a definite trend, they do correspond to a deep, undergoing process as they underlie a situation of political crisis and ungovernability. Similarly,
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* Latin America mobilizations in which diverse social sectors have acted as citizens have been responsible for the victory of Aristide in Haiti, the resignation of Collor and C.A. Pérez (Brazil and Venezuela), the collapse of Serrano's attempt to arbitrarily remain in power in Guatemala, the partial blocking of Menem's initiatives in Argentina, and the restraining of the Mexican government's genocide against the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). In other cases the initiatives of political and/or trade union organizations have led to open confrontations, such as the general strike in Nicaragua, the popular mobilization the process privatization in Uruguay after the referendum of 1992, the mobilizations in Puerto Rico which in 1993-94 led to defeats of the government in two reterendums, the general strike in Paraguay (May 1995), the popular mobilizations which shook Bolivia early in 1995, as well as the land takeovers in Peñalolen and then the mobilizations of teachers and coal miners in Chile.
For a certain number of these situations, spontaneous, heterogeneous and discontinuous movements which lacked a definite class identity. This is why they are fragile and why it would be a mistake to turn them into a model; and yet they should not be underestimated, given their enormous de-stabilizing potential, evidenced by the victory of Caldera in Venezuela after the "caracazos" (popular riots in Caracas) or the deterioration of Menemism and the growth of the Frente Grande and the Marcha Federal of July 6 following the social explosions in the North-east of Argentina. In the case of Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) in Ecuador and of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala, the movements in question possess a clearly defined identity (peasant-indigenous), an organization, a political program. Above all, they have been able to provoke a political polarization while turning themselves into a reference point for an important part of society. 48 International Viewpoint
Several of these movements had as a starting point specific (health, housing, wage) demands which, in the process of becoming political demands, went beyond the narrow framework of institutional struggle while simultaneously seeking new forms of participation which challenge political parties and their verticalism. An additional fact should be noted. During recent years, those struggles have pushed important social sectors to the left, a process which in turn has tended to radicalize those struggles and which has also manifested itself in the favorable electoral results obtained in several countries by democratic and left-wing currents.
Besides promoting growing social polarization, capitalist re-structuring has also brought with it another significant modification of the context in which those struggles unfold. While in the main countries of the region, the working class (wage-earning sectors with a steady income) constitutes an important social sector, it has nevertheless, as a class, lost part of its centrality as a driving force in the struggle for social change, either because its trade union organizations are in crisis, or have degenerated (through institutional corruption and/or betrayal by its leadership) or because, given the absence of credible alternatives among the political parties, workers have expressed themselves as citizens and not as class-conscious political actors. 2.3 IN THE CASE OF MEXICO, THE emergence of the EZLN which challenges the regime of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), declares war on the federal army, demands democracy, justice and liberty for all Mexicans, denounces the discrimination against indigenous peoples practiced by the whole of society and demands - arms in hand - the most elementary civic and democratic rights, the right to a dignified existence, the right to be an integral part of the nation, constitutes a specific expression of our peoples' resistance to a present and a future characterized by the growing poverty, exclusion, oppression and exploitation which imperialism seeks to impose on
Unlike social movements which have emerged in other Latin American countries, neo-Zapatismo represents a clearly defined national political project, with social and political objectives which are not limited to one town or region and which go beyond a single sector (even if the EZLN is deeply rooted in the indigenous communities of Chiapas). It is not by chance that the government and its army have been completely unable to question the justice and legitimacy of
The neo-Zapatista insurrection has deepened the crisis (opened in 1988) of the party-state regime while also unmasking the contradictions of a neoliberal project which had openly proclaimed its goal of leading Mexico, through a path of unprecedented prosperity, into the "first world". Through the formulation of a brief program which incorporates the aspirations of the Mexican people, the EZLN was able to attract the support of very wide and diverse social, political, ideological (both organized and unorganized) sectors, of almost all independent social organizations, a good part of the NGOs which have attained significant public presence, as well as of those Christians involved in and committed to popular struggles. The EZLN has sparked a powerful wave of national mobilizations for democracy with justice and dignity and against the war and the militarization of the country. This has awakened a wave of international solidarity which we must struggle to strengthen through all possible means.
All of this has been made possible, not only by the justness of the Zapatista demands but also by their tactical flexibility, which has made it possible tor them to build bridges toward the whole of society around certain shared objectives: an end to the party-state regime, a struggle for a new constituent assembly and a new constitutional framework, in one word, around a struggle for achieving democracy in Mexico which does not exclude any path, even the peaceful one. This tactical flexibilitv has been linked to a strategic clarity and ethical dignity, which has not been common in the constitutes watershed in the history of Mexico, not only because of its extraordinary contribution to undermining the party-state regime, but also because it represents a turning point for the left: on the one hand, it brings out the weaknesses, the deficiencies and shortcomings of the left which are obstacles to the growth and qualitative advance of the democratic movement,
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 49 at the same time it underlines the need for a programatic, organizational and practical reconstruction of the left. The experience of the EZLN itself sheds light on some aspects of this necessary reformulation. 2.4 THE ARMED CONFLICT WHICH ERUPTED in early 1995 between the armies of Ecuador and Peru, countries which have had a territorial dispute for a long time, introduced a new element of instability in the region. This was the first conflict of its nature since the war between El Salvador and Honduras in the early 1970s.
International organisms once again showed their incapacity to stop a confrontation which has weakened the economies of both countries, and resulted in several hundred deaths, thousands of displaced among the indigenous communities and ecological damage that may be irreparable. Multicorporations immediately sought to take advantage of the last two aspects of the situation through their attempt to create a freetrade zone on both sides of the border.
The war has been to the advantage of both governments. In Ecuador the President used it as an opportunity a "national unity and defense" rhetoric, which was taken up, not only by the general public but also by the majority of the left, thus contributing to an increase in the government's perceived legitimacy. In Peru the war played a key role in Fujimori's electoral victory. The almost complete absence of any reaction by the left organizations is an indication of the precarious state to which they have been reduced in both countries. 2.5 WITHIN A COMPLEX SOCIAL SITUATION it has been impossible to overcome the lack of synchronization between working-class struggles and the mobilizations of other social sectors. Important trade union struggles have occurred in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, etc. which point toward the beginnings of a recomposition within the working class. Nevertheless, the main social mobilizations, such as the revolts in the Argentinean north-east, the struggles of the coca leaf growers in Bolivia, of the CONAIE in Ecuador, the Zapatistas in Mexico, and the mobilizations against C.A. Pérez in Venezuela have developed without the large labor confederations or the main sectors of the working class playing the leading political role that they had, for example, in the 1970s.
The relative weakening of a class dimension or point of reference, itself a product of the crisis of capitalism and of the drastic reconfiguration of social relations in the continent, opens the space for struggles by new social forces and thus for the active emergence of new potentially revolutionary subjects which we must follow closely, taking advantage of every experience to overcome the lack of synchronization already mentioned. This is particularly important in those countries where the working class has considerable weight within the productive structure, since no radical social change can be conceived without a significant portion of that class being won over to the notion of a break with the status quo. 2.6 INSPIRED BY THE SANDINISTA victory in 1979, the launching of the Salvadorian revolution in the early 1980s, the political-social growth of the Brazilian Workers' farty (1), the vitality shown by the social conquests of the Cuban revolution, while the rest of the continent sank into its "wasted decade", the social movements of the region made substantial advances in their process of recomposition. Although facing the searing consequences of the neo-conservative offensive, they exhibited, until 1990, a dynamic which made a revolutionary outbreak a credible option. But the substantial modification took place in international political arena after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disappearance of the "socialist bloc", the defeat of the Sandinistas and the victory of Collor inevitably had negative consequences for the ongoing processes of recomposition. To these processes we must now add the evolution of the Salvadoran revolutionary process, leading to the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords, and the appearance of the deepest crisis in Cuba since the triumph of the revolution.
As in the rest of the world, capitalism in general and U.S imperialism in particular presented themselves as the absolute winners of the Cold War, while the hope for social change through a revolutionary break moved farther away from people's
Latin America * minds than ever before. This is not, nevertheless, a one-way process: the inability so far shown by capitalism to solve its own crisis, the sharp differences which exist between the imperialist powers coupled with continuing social resistance place obstacles and delay the coming of the "new world order" so loudly proclaimed in 1989 in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Nevertheless, since the class relationship of forces favors capital and its agents, the dynamic of the social movement, in spite of the uninterrupted nature of the struggles which constitute it, does not at present pose a revolutionary break, particularly as many political organizations or important sectors within them have definitely abandoned any notion of revolutionary change. 2.7. FAVORING, AS NEVER BEFORE, THE sectors of the bourgeoisie linked to the world market, the governments of the region subordinate any national interests, even sacrificing the public functions the state is supposed to have, to private interests. In this fashion diverse regimes and their parties have amputated a considerable portion of the social base of support they had relied on for decades. Consequently, the crisis which in the 1980s had
* Latin America already swept away most nationalistpopulist governments and parties has left no structure of domination unaffected. The most outstanding example of this is the crisis of the Mexican party-state embodied in the PRI. However, one may also mention the cases of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Brazil, countries in which the traditional party system is fractured and/or in open decomposition. The key weakness of the political projects of bourgeoises stems from the disintegration of their old social pacts, while they have not been able to propose a new long-term alternative project. To prevent the latter from emerging or imposing themselves is a key task of revolutionary Nevertheless, we must avoid any spontaneist impressionism. The crisis of the traditional parties and the existing social polarization do not in themselves lead to a crisis of the regime of domination; if a popular and democratic alternative which struggles for a break with the status quo does not emerge, the bourgeoisie will continue ruling, despite formal changes or changes in personnel. 3. POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT AND OPTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA. 3.1. The defeat of the Republicans in the U.S. and Clinton's rise as head of the government of the main imperialist power has not consequences for Latin America. While preaching tree trade and continental administration has reinforced its protectionist measures and, above all, strengthened the obstacles faced by immigrants, thus turning stabilization of the regional migratory situation into a key aspect of its present strategy. Lacking a strategic enemy ("there is no communism anymore"), its traditional interventionist policy now disguises itself as an anti-drug or anti drug-trade campaign. Behind these maneuvers lies a systematic effort to prevent self-organization processes of sectors of the people from emerging or advancing, while they can also be used to blackmail gorerments immersed in SU intermational Viewpoint the swamp of narco-politics, as is the case of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia. 3.2 THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Salvadorian revolutionary processes was a priority of the U.S. administrations during the 1980s. After the their defeat, imperialism has concentrated part of its attention on Haiti and Cuba.
Aristide's triumph in 1990 was based on a mobilized people, a people hungry for democracy, ready to sweep away all vestiges of Duvalierism. The military coup reduced to nought the taken by the government. Forms of terror comparable to the worst moments of the Duvalier dictatorship were soon imposed with the objective of crushing a social movement which during the preceding decade (a unique case in Latin America and the Caribbean) had attained ever higher levels of consciousness. The almost unanimous popular rejection of the savage military dictatorship that had not weakened popular determination; the pressures placed on the U.S. government by the thousands that fled Haiti and sought asylum there; the firm position adopted by Aristide himself, and the role played by the Afro-American community in the U.S. electoral conjuncture; and Washington's plans for economic integration, were all factors that led Clinton to decide to invade the island in order to restore the legitimate government under the strict tutelage of
Clinton's administration succeeded in presenting itself, not as a promoter of the coup, but as a champion of democracy, thus making the invasion seem the only possible option. This is the first time in which a U.S. occupation has gained such legitimacy — even if it is only temporary — in a Latin American country.
After going into exile, Aristide chose fundamentally to rely on the contradictions of U.S. imperialism to return to power in Haiti. He thus subordinated the growth of an internal resistance to the shifts and turns of his • diplomatic activity. His return was a victory for the Haitian people, but it qualitatively different from those that characterized his election. His policies, which now assume the trappings of populism, locate themselves within a elebal program of structural adjustments, which is part of the U.S. strategy. The disillusionment of many, for whom Aristide had been a synonym of change, threatens to generate an even deeper demoralization. Nevertheless, the situation remains highly unstable. 3.3 THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT IN THE U.S., on the one hand, and the feeling of political isolation generated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the other, created the context in which sectors of the Latin American left speak of significant changes regarding the first, and even come to regard it as a key ally. Such a radical shift in perspective is in principle explained by the enormous difficulty which the left confronts in elaborating a credible strategy for social change, but it must be forcefully opposed given the illusions it generates regarding the role of U.S. imperialism or the possibilities for social change without a radical break with the ruling
Those positions place themselves within a perspective of conciliation, which subordinates the need for social mobilization, selforganization and a radical democratic imperatives of "governability" 3.4 THE CRISIS IN MEXICO IS IN MANY ways one of the most salient aspects of the present situation in Latin America. The party-state regime, and with it a whole system of political domination, is immersed in a crisis which may become terminal. The Salinas government, which had advanced the farthest in the integration of Mexico s dependent economy into the U.S sphere of influence, until recently presented itself as a model to be followed by other Latin American governments. The signing and implementation of NAFTA offered a chance to mask the disastrous social consequences of the policies followed since 1982; the resources obtained through the privatization of public enterprises made it possible for the government to deploy its project ot 'social liberalism" through the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), which sought to ameliorate — not overcome - the extreme poverty suffered by a growing sector of the population and to, above all, co-opt social movements and leaders that had accepted the productivist discourse. The agrarian counter-reform unleashed in 1992 constituted a historical overturn for the
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 51 country. It also became a watershed for the left, which split between those that supported or vacillated in their appreciation of this measure and those which correctly opposed it from the start, thus contributing to opening the path for the most radical social explosion in recent years.
The creation of a social, democratic movement organized around the National Democratic Convention (CND), a political-military force with national (and international) significance; a fractured ruling party — the major source of political instability in the country - with many of its leaders turned into narco-politicians, and the collapse of the economic project which has led to the devaluation of the peso and the worst financial crisis of the last few years, form the background in which revolutionary left as well as the new government, formed fraudulent elections of August 1994, will have to maneuver.
The beginning of a democratic break embodied in the Zapatista uprising was temporarily interrupted bv the electoral fraud of 1994 and by the left's underestimation of the Mexican government and bourgeoisie's continuing capacity to respond. A prolonged, conflictual and dangerous transition has now been opened. It will revolutionaries to finish off the ancien regime. If the latter succeeds in neutralizing the ongoing social mobilizations, it will also open the path for the defeat of the EZLN and for recovering the ground it has lost. On the other hand, a coming togetner within a political movement of the social forces organized in the CND -the social basis of radical NeoCardenism - and the EZLN itself could, in the medium term, favor a radical democratic break which could put an end to the existing regime. 3.5 THE MAIN COUNTRY OF THE REGION, Brazil, went through a prolonged social and economic crisis, a crisis which was used by the bourgeoisie to install a social apartheid in which economic growth is built on the exclusion of a majority of the population. The deep political crisis among the Brazilian elites, social polarization, and the presence of a powerful populardemocratic bloc grouped around the
PT, also made it possible for the social mobilizations which led to Collor's resignation in 1992 to deal a serious blow to the neo-liberal project.
After that date, the struggle between the coalition of conservative forces and the PT to build alternative social projects and to gain hegemony among the majority of the population became sharper and reached its climax in 1994, during the presidential elections. The result has been an important political defeat for the Brazilian people and the Brazilian left, as well as for the democratic and revolutionary forces outside Brazil that were hoping for a victory of the PT.
The Brazilian and international power elites carefully prepared themselves to prevent Lula's triumph. The Brazilian bourgeoisie subordinated its internal divisions to its strategic objectives, took advantage of the poverty and marginalization suffered by millions of Brazilians and found in Henrique Cardoso a figure capable of reconstituting a bourgeois center around the Brazilian Social-Democratic Party (PSDB)-Liberal Front Party (PFL) alliance, with which capital can now move forward in imposing its project of conservative restructuring.
Several elements explain the defeat of the PT and of the populardemocratic bloc. The neo-liberal project launched by Collor took Brazil into a deep recession, with the social consequences this implies. Social -and in particular working class — struggles went into retreat beginning in 1990, while the popular-democratic movement was not able to stop the offensive launched against it. To obtain
Latin America * Collor's resignation, the PT ably took advantage of the divisions of the bourgeoisie, of the means of mass communication and of popular mobilizations in the streets, but it was unable to redeploy that triumph in the struggle to take over the government. Mobilizations continued under Itamar's everment, although at a much lower
Furthermore, the leadership of the PT underestimated how much the bourgeoisie had learned from the 1989 elections and the resources it was willing to invest in again preventing a victory of the PT. A triumphalist attitude (an electoral victory in the first round was taken for granted) prevailed during the first half of 1994, which demobilized many of the militants, while the party at the same time found itself paralyzed by the debate and the ambiguities of its position regarding the Real Plan. At the time of the elections the degree of polarization was far less acute than it had been in 1989, when the PT came very close taking over the
Cardoso's victory radically alters the socio-political landscape and threatens to close a period in the country's history. It forces the PI to reevaluate its political orientation of the last few years, the way in which the party is constructed within society, its presence within bourgeois institutions, and above all, it poses the challenge of how to present itself as a consistent opposition to Cardoso and his party (PSDB), who have become its main adversaries and consciously seek to attract the support of some of the social sectors on which the PT has historically relied. From the first days of his tenure Cardoso has demonstrated his Willingness to impose a radical program of capitalist re-structuration which requires breaking all social resistance. His response to the oil workers' strike of May 1995 has shown that one of the central objectives of the government is to decisively defeat the trade unions and in particular the Single Workers' Federation (CUT). This orientation, with its heavily authoritarian implications, requires constant blows against all points of resistance. It is thus particularly important that the PT maintain a policy of permanent mobilization and of no concessions vis-a-vis the government.
3.6 IN URUGUAY, AFTER A VIRTUAL TIE between the country's three main
* Latin America political forces, the traditional two party system has been irreversibly fractured, thus deepening the crisis of the political system. In a country with a culture of resistance and in which the left has hegemony over the popular movement, the campaign of the Frente Amplio has shown that, in spite of the unfavorable international situation, it is possible to deploy a discourse of open confrontation with the ruling system while at the same time growing electorally and socially. Through a mass campaign based on mobilizations throughout the country, the presidential candidate of the Frente Amplio (FA)-Encuentro Progresista, Tabaré Vázquez, was able to polarize society by highlighting the nature of the projects proposed to the country: that of the Colorado and Blanco parties — the pillars of the traditional two party system — and that of the FA itself. The left received the votes of the most impoverished and marginalized social sectors, a tact which substantiallv differentiates this experience from other electoral processes in Latin America.
The electoral results constitute a shake-up of the Uruguayan political system in which instability and ungovernability may now become the dominant characteristics. Thus, an authoritarian turn by the Sanguinetti government should not be excluded, particularly if his coalition with the National Party tails and the economic crisis deepens. The Frente Amplio, and the forces of the revolutionary left grouped in the Popular Participation Movement (MPP), now face the challenge of giving concrete form to the demands of the popular sectors which supported them, which implies a rejection of all compromises based on the theory of "governability" promoted by the more conciliatory sectors of the Frente Amplio. 3.7 AS IN THE CASE OF MEXICO, BRAZIL and Uruguay, recently held elections in several other countries determined the political conjuncture, since there were real possibilities that democratic and/or revolutionary left currents could form new governments (El Salvador, Venezuela), thus creating 52 International Viewpoint more favorable conditions in the struggle for a shift in the relationship of forces in the continent. The results are in and a balance sheet is in order.
bourgeoisie governments, without exception, formed a solid tront to prevent a victory of the left. The state apparatus was placed at the service of the candidates of capital, by modifying existing laws (Mexico, Brazil), through terrorism (El Salvador, Mexico), or through electoral fraud (Venezuela, Mexico), to which one must add the media, the support from international capital (El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil), and the mistakes of the left itself.
The left underestimated situation and in many cases used a discourse which - with the pretext of not scaring potential voter support — consciously sought to avoid polarizing society. Although the international context imposes certain adjustments in discourse, even on the program (the revolution is not around the corner), it must be pointed out that the obsession with the need to present a credible option has led to the notion that this requires limiting the level of social confrontation, while worrying more about the veto of those in power than the vote of the dispossessed, which in the end makes the latter feel excluded. It is true that the deepening economic and political dependence of our countries on imperialism allows the latter to exercise its political and economic blackmail from a position of increased strength, but it is precisely this fact which accentuates the importance of social mobilizations and, above all, of popular self-organization as key elements of any project seeking to achieve government power.
In this sense, it will be necessary to draw the lessons which flow from this and thus reformulate past strategies: it is impossible for the lett to seek a democratic break while taking as its practical axis the search tor governability" over and above popular mobilization, or reducing the institutional struggle to the electoral question particularly when, as we know, the bourgeoisie has the means to alter the electoral game at any moment. The institutional spaces conquered by the left (it has obtained its best results in its history), if they are to be useful, must become true sources of popular counter-power. It is necessary to combat and reject the gradualist and conciliationist positions which, in the aftermath of electoral defeat, argue that victory was never possible and which now promote pacts with the 3.8. THE EXCLUSION FROM CITIZENSHIP rights which social marginalization implies once again poses the importance of democratic demands. Within an ever more polarized and exclusionary reality, these demands are imperative as the axis of any alternative project. Thus, in the face of the insulting celebration of 500 years of the Conquista, the indigenous peoples of the continent re-emerged to demand equal rights, recognition of their traditions, cultures, languages and, above all, the right to be recognized as different from the mestizos, thus questioning the concept of "nation" imposed by the West. These democratic demands are playing a key role in the struggles going on in Ecuador, Mexico,
Chile, Paraguay
These democratic aspirations were also present in the mobilizations and struggles which led to the fall of Collor and C.A. Pérez, as well as in Panama, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Dominican Republic, in the ongoing democratic re-birth in Chile around the trial of the assassins of Orlando Letelier, as well as in Argentina, as a result of new revelations regarding the genocide carried out by the dictatorship. If these democratic aspirations are to generate a dynamic tending toward a radicaldemocratic break, they must stimulate not only actions within the existing legal framework, but also a clear orientation of struggle against military tutelage or impunity as well as against all forms of authoritarianism. continuity between those aspirations and such a break is not guaranteed, as political vacillations or lack of credible alternatives would permit the bourgeoisie and its governments to retake the initiative.
Like the rest of the world, Latin America is going through a transition marked by economic, political and social convulsions. Far from implying a uniform dynamic, this generates and reproduces diverse forms of struggle, new experiences, varied expressions of radicalism. It is in this framework, and without having recovered from the shock constituted by the collapse and disappearance of the "socialist bloc", that left-wing currents have had to re-examine many of the precepts which
14th World Congress of the Fourth International hasemed their action mathe antoing given rise to many ongoing discussions. Given that these conditions have produced a certain socio-political differentiation but which is as yet incomplete, the form and content of these discussions takes on greater relevance.
4. DEBATES AND SITUATION OF
THE LEFT
4.1. THE CREATION OF THE SÃO PAULO
Forum in 1990 is the most important international attempt to create a shared point of reference and a common framework for discussion in the lett. It is plural and democratic and it debates.
Nevertheless, the five meetings which have demonstrated that its main weakness lies in the lack of connection between what is discussed and what is done, and in the distance - which was evident in the Fifth Forum which met in Uruguay — that separates the institutional left from the social left. It is the latter which, structured around the popular movements, carries most of the weight of the resistance against the neoliberal project. The internationalism which many members of the Forum claim to defend has not gone beyond the limits determined by narrow interests. The refusal of the majority ot the members and participants of the
Forum to denounce the electoral fraud in Mexico (Managua, 1993), "justified"
by the links of those forces with the
Mexican government;
the lack of any continental initiatives in solidarity with the
Zapatista rising; the lack of criticism of the role of the Free Bolivia
Movement (MBL), a member of the Forum, in the repression of the
Bolivian people; the silence regarding the war into which the people of Peru and
Ecuador have been dragged, cannot be passed over. Without losing sight of the tac that the Forum is not a homogenous movement or that the revolutionary currents within it constitute a minority, a debate must be urgently promoted regarding its composition and the ways in which it could bring some coherence and substance to its declarations. Only thus could this valuable instrument be saved from becoming another failed project of the Latin American left. Regardless of political creeds, the crisis in Eastern Europe has dealt a blow to the Latin American and international left as a whole and its effects will persist for a long time. The tew remaining CIs (with the exception of the Cuban CP) have been swept away by the crisis. Organizations identified themselves as Marxist revolutionary have turned to liberal positions. This is the case of the majority of the Salvadorian ERP (Renewed Expression of the People, formerly the Revolutionary Army of the People), Radical Democracy in the PT of Brazil, part of the leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In other cases, as in the case of our international current, they have been weakened, given the difficulties encountered in adjusting to the new political situation. To these factors we must add the effects generated by defeats in Nicaragua, El Salvador and the crisis of the Cuban
4.2 In Nicaragua we have seen a qualitative reversal of the conquests of the revolution. The sector known as the "Area of Workers' Property" is highly
Latin America * bureaucratized; the achievements of the agrarian reform, in education, etc. have been totally or partially dismantled in accordance with the interests of the speculative and rentier sectors of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie; the perspective of the army and police as defenders of the people has been eroded, while the country as a whole, wearied by the destruction generated by the war and its foreign debt, remains subordinated to imperialist pressures and to the blackmail of the U.S., the IMF and the World Bank.
After a painful internal struggle the FSLN has split. Some of its leaders have been converted to liberalism, others make apologies for the Mexican regime, in the name of "stability" some have ordered the repression of popular mobilizations while others have used undemocratic methods to impose their decisions, and this leaves out those involved in corrupt acts (the "piñata"). A portion of its social base has left out of dissatisfaction with the policies of its leaders or because caudillista methods obstruct any democratic functioning, as was demonstrated by the 2nd Congress
When we held our 1991 World Congress we stated that the electoral results of 1990 constituted a significant political deteat but we hoped that the Frente would be able to resist and reorganize the people to regain power. Today, in spite of the break up of the National Opposition Union (UNO), this
1 53
* Latin America hypothesis is in doubt. The limiting of social mobilizations, the resistance to democratizing the FSLN, and its split into two opposing currents, which have weakened it politically and socially, make it all the more difficult to defend what is left of the conquests of the revolution. Even if one of the currents claiming the heritage of Sandinismo again takes over the government in 1996, this will not imply retaking the reins of power; in other words, it will not imply resuming the leadership of a process interrupted in 1990. 4.3 In El Salvador, where the International accompanied the revolutionary process from the start, it is necessary to formulate certain considerations in the aftermath of the Peace Accords, the results of the elections and the break up of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). During 10 years of civil war, the FMLN exhibited a politicalmilitary capacity which inspired a whole generation of militants. Neither imperialist support or death squads, nor the assassination of 80,000 civilians, were able to stop the momentum and capacity of this organization which became the undisputed vanguard of the mass movement.
The defeat of the 1989 offensive, the shift in the international situation, the war-weariness of the people, including its most politicized sectors, led the FMUN to seek a negotiated end to the armed conflict, through which it secured a peace accord without defeat, thus opening a conflictive transition in the aftermath of a bloody war.
The negotiations completed in 1992 counterposed two tendencies which had been crystallizing since the 1989 offensive. On one side were those that concluded that the revolution was not a break but a process (the majority of the ERP and the National Resistance - RN); on the other, those that argued that the accords were only one phase (the political revolution) after which the social revolution should be carried out (Popular Liberation Forces - FPL, Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers - PRTC), with both sides coinciding in the notion of unleashing a democratic revolutionary 54 International Viewpoint process (for a new economic, social and democratic order).
The Chapultepec Accords could not have been anything more than the beginning of a solution to the armed conflict, but the turn towards liberal and renegade positions by the main leaders of the ERP and the RN completely upset the delicate balance within the FMLN. After the failure in the 1994 elections, a crisis broke out over the support given by part of the ERP and RN to the National Republican Alliance (ARENA) government. Having lost the common objective which united it, the FMLN now moves around two differentiated projects: the project of the CP-FPLPRTC and the tendency that broke from the ERP, on the one hand, and the project of the RN and of the Villalobos current, which have left the Front to create the Partido Demócrata, on the other. It must be underlined that a large majority of cadre and militants exists which correctly insists in giving priority to popular mobilizations to make sure that the Chapultepec Accords will be respected. It is this sector which the International must address, joining the fight to ensure that the Accords are respected while also struggling against those currents which now seek to deform the history of that proletarian revolution, presenting it as the adventure of a minority which for 10 years sought to "take power by assault"
4.4 The significance of the Central American revolutions must be assessed on the basis of the extremely weak and dependent character of its economies and of the existing international political situation. Both revolutions confronted the U.S. political-military machine; the material and human consequences of the war (150,000 dead in the two countries in 10 years) must not be forgotten. The militarization of social structures as a whole led to a proportional and parallel militarization of the revolutionary organizations, thus favoring verticalism at the expense of democratic functioning, a situation which had (and has) consequences for the relations among revolutionary organizations themselves as well as their relations with other social organizations and sectors.
Furthermore, although there was a movement of international solidarity, it must be admitted that it did not match the needs of the two revolutionary processes, particularly as imperialism and international social democracy, through different means, opted for sabotaging them. Thus, the international left, as well as the apathy in which workers of the imperialist countries have been submerged for the last 10 years and the generalized retreat of internationalism in all countries, are also responsible for the defeat of the Central American revolution. Given the extent of the crisis of the Central American revolutionary project, our current is forced to rediscuss its political orientation in this zone, to draw from the experiences of both processes as well as participate in the debate which at present involves thousands of militants committed to international solidarity, a debate in which questions such as whom to support and with what objectives must be answered. 4.5 BETWEEN 1991 AND TODAY OUR presence as a current became weaker in Latin America. As a result of the crisis mentioned above and of our own failings, we ceased to exist in several countries. The core of militants that for ten years ensured the continuity of our political work is not functioning in a structured fashion. A new collective leadership must be built. This crisis has not been compensated by the affiliation of those groups and organizations which in the same period have joined the International. The debate regarding our prospects in Latin America must advance in the context of the discussion regarding International as such. Our stronger social implantation in those countries where we retain organizations must be the basis for facing this challenge. New dilemmas, forms of struggle, and social actors have made their appearance, and the possibilities processes leading to radical breaks continue to exist. We are but one part of the revolutionary left that exists in the region. We must orient our efforts toward transtorming those possibilities into realities.
On the Cuban crisis
14th World Congress of the Fourth International
1) THE CUBAN CRISIS HAS ENTERED ITS fifth year. The cumulated effects of the interruption of exchanges with the
USSR and the Comecon, of the reinforcement of the American embargo, of the bureaucratic centralization of the command economy, provoked an economic collapse and a crisis unprecedented in the history of the revolution.
The generalized shortages of the
"special peace time period" (a sort of sui generis war communism) in effect since
1990, and the constant aggravation of the living conditions of the population, forced the Castro leadership to begin a process of economic retorms in 1993.
The opening to foreign capital, the development legalisation of the dollar were the first decisions adopted to stem the generalized economic recession and the brutal drop in the living standards of the population which was behind he flight of the balseros in August 1994. 2) THE MASSIVE EXODUS AND THE demonstrations of August 1994, represented a turning point in the evolution of the situation and stimulated the acceleration of the reforms. For the first time since 1986 the free farmer's markets were reestablished and the prices fixed according to offer and demand. The failure of the food plan, the constant degradation of the quality of food for the population which had been previously assured by the libreta, the development of an underground economy and black market in dollars, forced the Castro leadership to retract the decisions that it had imposed in the name of the "rectifiation process of negative errors and tendencies" decided by the third congress of the CCP.
Private initiative was henceforth reestablished and encouraged, at least for the small peasants as well as for the various artisanal or service activities. The continuing decentralisation was supposed to stimulate the development -on the municipal level-of independent activities and tavor the development ot an intormal sector tied especially to the growth of tourism (for which prostitution is one of the most negative consequences).
The farmer markets assure supplies to the most well-off sectors: the prices are very high but they are set in pesos and therefore accessable (unlike the black market) to those who do not have dollars.
3) THE GENERAL IMPOVERISHMENT IS nevertheless dramatic and the acceleration of the adjustments in process, under the pressure of financial institutions of European and Latin-
American governments, have further aggravated the problems of daily life. In addition to the inequalities which have resulted from the reforms, are the consequences flowing rationalisation of the State apparatus and of the enterprises that have resulted in around 500,000 lay-offs. preservation ot a portion of previous wages and the possibilities of alternative work under very strict conaitions (essentially in agriculture) does not make up for the loss of revenues. As for the social gains in health and education they are not (for the moment) threatened, but the deterioration of the quality of services in considerable. The measures taken to expand labor productivity (suppression of excess personnel, productivity bonuses, bonuses in dollars, increased work discipline) increase the pressure on wage workers without however, involving a compensation in terms of worker control in the enterprises or mass participation the city governments or neighborhoods.
As for the unions, their role consists in stimulating production, to popularize the economic reforms in the framework ot the well-known on-the-job "efficiency assemblies" while softening the consequences of the current changes.
In the mixed enterprises (jointventures), the wagearners do not have any other protection than the very limited ones granted the union or the
CCP cells but they enjoy better wages and numerous material advantages in relation of the workers of the State enterprises which explains the increase in job seekers in this sector. The Cuban economy now functions at two speeds.
4) THE CURRENT CHANGE IS THE RESULT
OF contradictory political plans. The debates which took place in leadership circles, amongst intellectuals, researchers and professors have resulted in a provisional consensus on the inevitability of the economic opening. But the concepts are different.
For some the economic opening must not threaten the political system: But the
Chinese "example " which inspires them is not applicable in Cuba if only because Washington will not allow
Havana to do what it allows Peking to
For the others (inspired by social democracy) the economic reforms must be a prelude to a radical political recasting ot institutions. Only a parliamentary democracy and generalized market economy will be able to bring about the lifting of the American embargo without which according to them, no economic recovery will be possible.
Only a minority of political leaders and researchers consider the current economic opening as a necessary evil given the international isolation of the island, but propose that this "NEP" be accompanied by political changes going in the direction of an expansion of the decision making powers of wage workers, of a rank and file democracy and of an antibureaucratic struggle which would have to involve changes in the current functioning of organs of popular power (OPP). This orientation which would involve giving the population expanded powers of control could allow the limiting of the aggravation of work conditions and the deterioration of the standard of living of the workers on one hand, and the enrichment of bureaucrats involved in trade or of the personel involved with tourism or of commercial agriculture on the other. 5) THE CURRENT REFORMS ARE undermining the social base of the regime; the ideological disarray, the absence of perspectives and especially the erosion of revolutionary legitimacy
55
* Cuba have had effects as serious as the economic shortages; furthermore, the confusion is aggravated by the absence of debates and encounters which would allow the collective development of a middle term survival plan. Without such a democratisation ot political institutions (the OPP) the possibilities to compromised given the fact that the isolation of Cuba is nearly total in an international context marked by a generalized decline of revolutionary It is true that the monopoly of power castroists is less leadership teams are progressively role of the CCP has and intellectuals can express themselves more freely. But no organized political current is allowed including within the CCP. The written and oral expression of political alternatives to those of the regime remains prohibited in the press or in the media. The repression against dissidents is still in place;
The Cuban people has thus remained the prisoner for more than three decades of a contradiction that it can not resolve on its own: to defend a national sovereignty and hard won social gains by silently accepting the power of the figure who incarnates national and revolutionary legitimacy in the face of imperialist domination; or it can revolt against Castro, the father of the nation and in doing so threaten its independence.
This contradiction is the result of the geopolitical balance of forces which has been extraordinarilv unfavourable to the Cuban revolution since the 6) THE SURVIVAL OF THE CASTRO REGIME is above all threatened by the unremitting harassment by the American government. No country has suffered as long an ordeal. In Vietnam, the US embargo has been lifted. China enjoys most favored nation status and, the US administration has not hesitated to negotiate with the North Korean regime. However, after 35 years of unilateral economic embargo and sanctions increased by the Torricelli law in 1992 and by measures taken by Bill Clinton in the summer of 1994, the new Republican majority is preparing to adopt the bill of Senator Jesse Helms, president of the Senate Commission on 56 International Viewpoint
Foreign Affairs which aims at blocking foreign investments on the island, the sole means by which the country can receive capital and technology.
The avowed goal administration is to eliminate Fidel Castro and his regime and to show that any socialist revolution in the Western hemisphere is destined to fail, as was seen in Grenada, Nicaragua and Central America. The fate reserved for Cuba in the event of the fall of the Castroite revolution could be worse than that of Nicaragua and would represent a significant historical setback. The Cubar this: their silence expresses the current impasse and the lack of perspectives. There is a risk that the only possibility in the region, that of Latin American economic integration will take place under the domination of Washington; a year after the signing of NAFTA the Mexican crisis shows the effects of a free trade zone running from Alaska to the Southern tip of the 7) WE DEFEND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION because we are against the oppression of the weakest by the strongest, for the independence of a small country against the hegemonic will of the leading military power in the world;
The fact that this is a socialist revolution for which the initial project was one of the most internationalist of this century and for which the social gains were amongst the most important ever acquired by a third world country explains why this nation could stand up
American aggression. Certainly without aid from the USSR the island could not in the context of the Cold War hold out for long. But this aid had dramatic side effects. The "international socialist" division of labor maintained Cuba in a situation of subordination to the Comecon and elaboration autonomous economic development.
Prisoner of its geo-political borders, the country was protected somewhat by the cold war without however, ever being the master of its destiny. The dramatic episode of the missile crisis referred to bv Che in his farewell letter was a tragic illustration of this. Like Vietnam, Cuba paid dearly for the squabbles between the super powers. 8) THE BUREAUCRATIC DEFORMATIONS, the repressive practices and Caudillolike functioning of Castro likewise contributed to the progressive decline of the influence of the revolution. But a country at war, besieged for 35 years, without energy resources could not be a model of socialist democracy. Socialism on a small island was obviously even more impossible than in the Soviet Union. But this doesn't mean that Castro's failures absolve him from not answering the imperialist campaign around human rights. He is guilty of not dissociating himself from Stalinism after the fall of the Berlin wall.
Our criticism centers on the absence of political pluralism and the repression of democratic rights, but in no case is it to be confused with those who demand "free" elections (with the Miami-based parties) and the restitution of expropriated property in order to assure the "democratic" victory of the counterrevolution like in Nicaragua. Under the current conditions in Cuba, a counter revolution would involve a civil
To demand the respect of democratic rights presupposes a struggle for the unconditional lifting of the US embargo which is the most basic of democratic rights, for the halting of aggression and blackmail without conditions. In this fight we are at the side of the Cuban people and the Castro leadership against imperialism.
But this anti-Imperialist solidarity does in no way involve support of the Castro leadership when it deprives its people of all power to protest and self rule. In the resistance-for the time being silent-of the Cuban people against the bureaucracy, we support all struggles for reforms which involve a perspective of defense of the gains of the revolution. The institutions of popular power (from the local level to the National assembly must be democratized to allow the pluralist expression of different currents, the mass organizations must cease being transmission belts for the party, the tactory assemblies must have control over the current economic restructuring.
The US aggression favors the preservation of bureaucratic domination. Only the halting of this aggression can stimulate the independent mobilisation of the Cuban masses, a necessary condition for the survival of the revolution;
On the other hand, the overthrow of Fidel Castro by the Miami forces will not be the signal of a Cuban revolution, but rather, the victory of the counter revolution.
Building the
International today
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 57
1. SINCE OUR 13TH WORLD CONGRESS IN 1991, the balance of forces has continued to deteriorate for the toiling masses, in the framework of the general trends noted and analysed in the resolution on the world situation that we adopted at that congress. The international dialectic of struggles has had a negative effect, bringing about setbacks, defeats or isolation of many emancipation movements. Our own current has been affected and weakened by this negative dialectic, a result that could hardly be avoided in an organization unprotected by any sectarian shell to protect it from the contagion of the real course of social and political struggles.
The final collapse of the Stalinist system in the USSR led to a broad offensive of pro-capitalist sections of the bureaucracy and other supporters of the generalization of the market economy and privatizations. The chauvinistic and bellicose drift of most of the national movements proliferating in the debris of bureaucratic "socialism" has been accentuated. This reactionary evolution is explained in large measure by the decline of the workers' movement and the radicalization in the imperialist countries, since the recession of the mid-1970s.
More generally, all the social movements which are still developing at different rates in different countries-against imperialist oppression, austerity, the harmful effects of the market economy, environmental dangers, women's oppression, militarism, etc.—are still very fragmented. The project of a socialist society offering an alternative both to capitalism and to the disastrous experiences of bureaucratic "socialism", lacks credibility: it is severely hampered by the balance sheet of Stalinism, of social democracy, and of Delegate votes For: 80.5% Against: 16.5% Abstentions: 3.0% populist nationalism in the "third world", as well as by the weakness of those who put it forward today.
In a large number of dominated countries, broad vanguard forces are now sceptical about the chances of success of a revolutionary break with imperialism; and sceptical about the possibilities of taking power and keeping it, given the new world balance of power. Other forces, and not the least important, have broken openly with this perspective: in Latin America alone, this is true for parts of the former leadership of the ERP/FMLN and of the FSLN leadership, as well as one current in the Brazilian PT.
In such a context, the main trend is adaptation and compromise in the name of realism. Under the impact of the crisis and of the inadequacy or sheer lack of perspectives, a chain reaction of political forces moving rightward has turned into a landslide. This is the result both of transtormations resulting trom changes that have accumulated over a long period, particularly attecting the mass base of the big parties, and of more or less sudden turns by movements whose kind of social roots makes drifts in any direction possible. Thus bourgeois populism, like social democracy, has veered toward a
"social" version of neo-liberalism; the Stalinist parties have completed their social-democratization; and many exrevolutionaries have adopted the most right-wing, stageist Stalinist positions, when they have not actually "leaped over stages" in their own way in order to merge into the "social" neo-liberal haze.
In these circumstances, revolutionary internationalism appears as utopia. But the historically unprecedented globalization of the world economy-capital internationalization, role of multinationals, globalization of the market which functions now simultaneously under the development of communication technology, growing share of international exchange in relation to national economies, etc.—; the globalization of labour, whether it is brought about through work-force migration or through the movement of capital and industries; the globalization of politics and of imperialist war, in the epoch of grand coalitions under the leadership of the US world cop: all of this combines powerfully to make the need for a workers' International, engaged in the fight against planetary capital and its local detachments, more compelling than ever.
* Building the International today
Since political cycles are never entirely detached from socio-economic cycles, intransigent revolutionary hopes can draw sustenance from the strong tendency toward worsening social tensions, in the context of a capitalism which will be incapable of preventing impoverishment trom being immediately seen tor what it 1s. Illusions about a triumphant neoliberalism rising up over the ruins of the Berlin Wall have thus already largely given way to a deep scepticism, which today is turning against really existing capitalism. The swaggering vainglory of imperialisms that, without the slightest danger to themselves, defeated the mirage of "the world's fourth largest army" in Iraq, has largely been dissipated today by the impotence that they have shown in Bosnia, Somalia and even Haiti. Bush buried the Vietnam syndrome too soon. The advantage gained from the impressive mobilization against US aggression in Vietnam continues to restrict the interventionist capacity of the greatest military power of all time.
So there is no lack of reasons for keeping the flame of revolutionary hope burning. But a new accumulation of mass experiences, partial victories and radicalization of new generations is needed to bring together all the conditions for a new leap forward in building vanguard organizations that will be both revolutionary and internationalist. The crisis of the revolutionary vanguard can in fact no longer be posed in the terms of the 1930s. Today it is not only a matter of changing the bankrupt leaderships. The necessary recomposition will not be limited to a change in the balance of power within the organized workers' movement as it exists today. It has to go through the gradual reorganization of the different emancipatory social movements internationally. This will be • long process, which may be accelerated by certain big events in the world class struggle. 2. NONETHELESS, THE GENERAL TRENDS of the global situation weigh on the different national situations in an unequal manner, combining with the 5-72 - local structural or temporary specificities.
What is in any event certain is that a world without mass struggles or big social clashes is a chimera. The-often catastrophic-social and environmental impact of the world crisis of capitalism both in the advanced and in the underdeveloped countries, the breakthrough of new generations in the arena of social struggles as well as the emergence of relatively young workers' movements in the newly industrialized countries or the countries undergoing partial industrialization, the catastrophic consequences of the transition to a market economy for the inhabitants of the post-Stalinist countries, are all factors of struggle which, far from withering away, are growing
The collapse of the Stalinist system has had the positive effect of seriously shaking sectarian prejudices against us in the ranks of working-class, trade-union and political vanguards. The triumphalism of capital has also had the effect of encouraging the unification of all anti-capitalists, who are now conscious of their weakness. We are better able today relationships of activist solidarity and unity in struggle with forces who until quite recently balked at the very idea of talking to us, particularly in the industrialized international network gives us the advantage of being able to make a decisive contribution to the comingtogether of anti-capitalist forces particularly at the European level, where the need for such a comingtogether has become completely obvious in face of the capitalist unification taking place, whatever its stops and starts. But our weakness is still a serious hindrance in this area, and social-democratic reformism, which is involved in building up capitalist Europe, still has a credibility that is incomparably greater than ours, despite its rebuffs in dealing with the CrisIs.
Besides, insofar as, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has not existed a state which can be presented in any credible way as a "rearguard" or a "big brother" of the anti-imperialist movement, it will be possible to enter into a renewed and-hopefully-more serene debate with our revolutionary interlocutors in the dependent countries on the definition of a new internationalism, free of any bureaucratic or paternalistic domination. It is true, however, that in the current situation, after experiences such as the isolation of the Nicaraguan revolution, the process of partial and negotiated solutions in South Africa or the suffocation of Cuba, social-democracy will not fail to use its diplomatic networks and its position in national and international institutions to undermine the traditions of militant solidarity.
So, we should grasp the scope of this contradiction: the current situation combines a crisis of the international workers' movement, which opens new perspectives for discussions and political recomposition in the medium term, and a social and ideological balance of power which blocks, for the time being, all possibilities of a qualitative growing over in building a revolutionary vanguard on a world scale. This contradiction is what should guide our policy tor building the International today. 3. MANY ORGANIZATIONS COMING FROM traditions other than ours and which maintain their revolutionary aims are led to revise their historic reference points in the light of the final balancesheet of Stalinism and the crumbling of the so-called "socialist camp" . Even though we are convinced that our own analysis of Stalinism has, essentially, stood the test of time and done it better than any other theory, we do not deny the fact that the global political turmoil has affected, on this question, the considerations which in the past served to historically delimit the "Trotskyist" current from the others within the far left of which we are a part.
Thus, the analysis of the Stalinist Soviet Union, the identification with the historical struggle of the Russian Left Opposition, and with the trajectory of the Fourth International since the Second World War will little by little lose their distinguishing character in the constitution of revolutionary organizations. Although for us this is still a considerable political asset, it is however losing an important part of its direct and determinant relevance for the future fights, insofar as new militant generations are educated in a radically changed world context. On the contrary, our analysis of Stalinism, of the bureaucracy as a social layer with specific interests and our conception of socialist democracy have imposed themselves as unavoidable elements in
Building the International today*
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 59 any comprehensive study of the bureaucratic and substitutionist phenomena which can always threaten to corrupt the social emancipation movements before and/or after the revolution. This is now a decisive question in the formation of revolutionary organizations.
Thus, such a marker which in the past could seem a singularity of "Trotskyism" can in the future be considered in a totally different way. Certain historical references to splits and complex cracks within the communist movement of the 1930s will become relative, yielding to a revaluation of the classical and fundamental division between "revolutionaries" and "reformists", if not between social-democrats and anticapitalists.
This tends thus to change the possibilities of certain groups and currents joining the International, as well as the conditions for a political and/or organizational convergence with others in the long run. Currents, groups or factions of Maoist, Castroist or even neo-Stalinist origin could move closer to our positions. We can now envisage more easily winning them to our project and programme, meaning for them a deeper break with the Stalinist part of their heritage, without their necessarily having to identify with "Trotskyism" or fit themselves into its continuity. However, we should be aware of the tact that current changes in world politics are not leading in most cases to adoption of more revolutionary positions, but to capitulation and rapid integration into dominant bourgeois ideology.
We should also take up the new topics of political thought that interest the young generations, which will develop, from now on, in a "postStalinist" context, where new ideological concerns and experiences must be combined with the century old lessons once more confirmed by capitalism in crisis. Taking up new topics is not simply a question of "pedagogy" towards the struggling youth, but much more a fundamental question of our capacity to elaborate theory, update our programme and assimilate the new political experiences, original forms and themes of struggle, socio-economic changes, etc.
We hope to carry out a real mutation of the Fourth International. We hope to develop the Fourth International further, while at the same time carefully its keeping conquests from almost 60 years of existence. We want to change, but not as most left organizations have changed in the past years: retreating faster and faster backwards from positions as they are challenged by the aggressive bourgeois offensive. We would like to confirm and deepen an advantage that our anti-sectarian attitude has increasingly allowed us to have during the last years: no longer to be simply perceived as one "Trotskyist" grouping among others, but as a component of the world revolutionary movement, putting internationalist solidarity and the interests of the struggle against the eston or any oppressors over any factional calculation or any ideological difference. We hope to welcome into our ranks revolutionary Marxist organizations which do not necessarily claim to be
"Trotskvist" nor identity with our history, but which join us on the basis of a real programmatic coming together. In the longer term, we hope to and international regroupment for all the healthy, militant, radically anticapitalist vanguard forces which continue or are renewed in an original way through the current turmoil in the world workers' movement.
4. THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL IS STILL, today, the only organic international grouping of revolutionary formations sharing a same general programmatic orientation.
This orientation includes fighting:
• 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 into and national struggles 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 multipartyism, the diversity of tendencies and ensuring independence vis-a-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.
• 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 anticapitalist and anti-bureaucratic perspective.
• For active internationalism and international anti-imperialist solidarity, for the defense of the working masses' interests in every country, with no
* Building the International today 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 to free expression and tendency are granted and guaranteed.
• To build a mass, pluralistic, revolutionary International.
T h programmatic orientation includes as many elements resulting from the e W revolutionary and protest experiences of the last thirty years as from previous. periods, trom the revolutionary assets of the Third International and the Trotskyist current from 1925 to 1940. Our political coherence has thus been forged along the years by continuously taking in new gains and re-assessing the old ones. Of course, new problems and experiences arise all the time, demanding a continuous effort of understanding and elaboration. That is the only way in which the revolutionary Marxist heritage can avoid sclerosis, and become enriched in order to serve as a guide for mass action. 5. BASED ON THIS COMMON programmatic orientation, the revolutionary organizations in the Fourth International today work together to build it.
Our International is still very modest, given the tasks needed from the world revolutionary movement. It constitutes however an indispensable and irreplaceable instrument for sharing the very diverse political experiences of national organizations with a not insignificant militant existence, especially in relation to the rest of the revolutionary movement. This capacity for synthesis is one of the raisons d'être of an International. It is one of the best remedies against national isolation and theorizing from local experience alone. In this sense, the decision to contribute building the International is, tor the organizations which form it, an aspect of their own "national" party-building and a way of limiting the constant national pressures 60 International Viewpoint and the deformed vision that these can induce.
Of course, the International is not in itself a sufficient guarantee for having a correct view of world reality, and thus of the national situation which is part of it. A mistake can also be collective, but it is the less likely to occur the more there are different points of view participating in the discussion and development of positions. Seeing and correcting mistakes are also easier. In that sense, the International is a necessary condition for having a balanced grasp of world reality.
Only an organic framework, with collective discussion rules and means of elaboration, really offers this advantage, and does so in a much more systematic and general manner than bilateral dialogues between organizations. By such a process, the member parties give as much to the International as a whole as the latter to each of them. 6. THE EFFORT TO STRENGTHEN THE International must begin by strengthening and broadening our parties in each single country. Just as in the separate countries the building of the International is a question of reorganizing the labour movement. There is no ready network in place, just waiting to be used by revolutionary groups.
The two mass Internationals were built in periods of upsurge. For the Second, Social Democratic, International its base was the rise of a new million headed labour movement. For the Third, Communist, International it was the Russian revolution that attracted workers throughout the world.
The Fourth International experienced on a much smaller scale a similar upturn in the years after 1968. But the differences were great. The upturn was more limited, especially among workers. The labour movement had already gone through several splits and the Fourth International seemed to be just one of many possible forms of organizing. There is also an immense difference between building an international organization based on a theoretical program and an organization with a program that is continuously tested in practice.
To build a stronger and broader International today implies different kinds of unity work, both in ditterent countries and across the borders. But what do we mean by "unity"? We distinguish three different kinds of united work:
A) THE UNITED FRONT IN CONCRETE STRUGGLES AND MASS MOVEMENTS
This is and has always been the most important level of unity. When we work within a trade union, when we form a committee to stop an environmentally harmful road construction, when we help organize a student demonstration, then we seek the broadest, concrete unity.
The fundamental question is always: what is best for the advancement of the cause? Rather than seeking the most "revolutionary" platforms, we try to build movements with a broad participation of working people, rallied around their own interests. In these struggles we participate with our parties and the Fourth International but with humility and respect for those who fight side, not manipulatively or in a sectarian way. This kind of unity work is the most important level of our daily work - and even with more restricted party building aims it is the most important. For given the fact that our task today is to reorganize and reconstruct the workers movement, this can only be done as this movement is formed in today's and tomorrow's struggles. B) UNITY WITH OTHER REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS
The Fourth International has never pretended to have the monopoly on revolutionary thought and action. Other revolutionary organizations exist around the world; some lead heroic combats that we support totally. The fact is nevertheless that no big organization outside our ranks shares with us, for the time being, both in theory and practice, the whole programmatic framework listed above.
Nonetheless, some organizations would tick off almost all these points, with an exception or a nuance (generally on the conception of the national or international organization). In general we seek to hold friendly and solidarity relations with organizations, excluding the ultrasectarians. That they do not join our International can derive from the fact that they come from a political tradition other than Trotskyism, from another historical evolution or other experiences... If that is the only
Building the International today*
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 61 problem, we can have no doubt that with the current political shake-out we should work towards unifying our forces.
Nothing can justify maintaining an organizational division on the sole basis of how to interpret the degeneration of the Soviet Union and the Stalinist phenomenon to which it gave rise-that is to say, if these differences of interpretation do not in fact hide contradictory programmatic orientations in current struggles (for example the attitude towards the ongoing privatization in the postStalinist societies). Any approach which tries to take analytical conformity as the organizational convergence, without demonstrating the existence of important political consequences flowing from theoretical differences, stems from a dogmatic, sectarian and monolithic conception of the organization, often related to a not very democratic internal functioning and to manipulative practices.
Political coming together in concrete struggles and the pluralistic and democratic conception of the revolutionary party that we have to build are, as we see it, much more important than common adherence to a whole theoretical programme taken abstractly. From that point of view, we do not identify with a so-called international "Trotskyist movement" which would constitute a separate entity encompassing the constellation of organizations labelling themselves as such. Therefore we definitely do not see as a priority the "reunification of the Trotskyist movement" on the sole basis of common references; we submit our relations with the other claiming-to-beTrotskyist organizations to the above mentioned general considerations.
In the last decade there are however very few examples of successful projects of unity with other revolutionary organizations. It is no hazard that our experiences of joining other, much broader class struggle forces with a mass influence have been so far more positive. The pressures on small organizations with few members and too few possibilities to really have common experience testing out lines in practice are much stronger.
In general we think there are reasons to be particularly cautious in joining with other small left forces in a period like this. Things like common historical references, organizational culture and language which we would like to overcome, do however play significant role in times of decline and defensive struggles. History shows that they can-and must-be more easily overcome in periods of upturn, when organizations are welded together by imperative needs to answer the problems of class struggles and to cooperate.
This should not be taken as an argument for sectarian attitudes. But it is an argument for seeing parties not as robots that can be made to perform the most efficient motions, but as living "subjective" things like pride, self. organisms held together esteem, common experience and habits. In a period like this of a harsh offensive from our enemies we must understand the risk of losing all that. C) BROADER REGROUPMENT WITH OTHER LEFT ORGANIZATIONS
This kind of cooperation is not meant to replace our work in mass organizations like trade unions, student organizations, women's movements, etc. Broad regroupment with other left organizations can have different purposes. Firstly, we get in touch with the membership of the other organizations and have common experiences with them. Secondly, we increase our common audience in society, and become more credible and powerful. Even where our forces are numerically weak, the crisis of the workers movement, of the other social movements and of the traditional leaderships—in a context where the still important social resistance puts a political outcome on the agendacreates a situation in which it could become possible to unite forces, in order to weigh together on political life and to impose ourselves as participants in the debate on strategy within the workers movement and the left.
The conditions that could allow these kinds of regroupment to take place can obviously not be determined in advance, neither in their scope, their political platform nor their organizational forms, all of which depend on national realities, if not on regional and local realities. It could be a question of either new political movements; regrouping anti-capitalist vanguard forces in a non-party framework, or of unitarian electoral initiatives leading to a collaboration beyond the elections; or of joining parties coming out from the crisis of the workers movement, which have kept a mass influence and develop in practice a line of resistance to neo-conservative policies. In all cases, it is a matter of developing a view of the recomposition of the left and the workers movement, as a dynamic process in which not only politically organized forces intervene,
* Building the International today but also individuals (trade-unionists, feminists, intellectuals, social workers, etc.). The Fourth International commits itself to taking such initiatives of unity and to answering others' initiatives favourably, every time that we find it possible to establish links between radical forces on concrete tasks.
On the international level, we take part in all forums held with the stated aim of allowing the left political forces to debate, even if are far from being all anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist. Such is the case, for instance, of the Left meetings. Such could be the case, tomorrow, with European, African or other meetings. Despite the fact that they are very heterogeneous in their composition, these meetings are nonetheless useful landmarks for the redefinition of the revolutionary current in the new period. We can ourselves also promote these kinds of meetings in areas like Eastern Europe, the Indian sub-continent, Black Africa or the Arab region. But when doing this, we constantly give the priority to bringing together the forces and tendencies with whom we are in strategic convergence. The important thing is to have clear and visible goals with such campaigns and meetings. It is also decisive that the initiatives are democratic and not just run from the top down. 7. COULD THESE FORMS OF UNITY WORK lead to the formation of a new and broader International?
Successive Internationals corresponded, each time, to new tasks linked to very big socio-political evolutions. Now, the least one can say about the turmoil in the global situation since 1989 is that it has deeply changed the framework in which the problems of the revolution, and thus previous differences, were posed. To start with, we have to evaluate such mutations and agree both on the general lessons to draw and their consequences for revolutionary activity. It will also be necessary to test in action the political agreements which could flow from a reaction to events. Thus, it will be perhaps possible some time to define the tasks and structure of a new 62 International Viewpoint
International, qualitatively broader than what we have now.
For the time being, a world conference of revolutionary forces with no precise aims—such as solidarity with an endangered revolution, for instance-would only be, at best, a futureless cacophonous gathering. For it to be something else, participants in such a meeting should have a minimum of programmatic and political homogeneity, and a true interest in pursuing a common organizational goal. What is more, to bring the possible candidates for such a gathering, without discriminating against the poorest, there would have to be a prior agreement on equal distribution of the financial burden that such an initiative would imply, which would not be easy.
The actually existing world revolutionary movement is the result of decades marked by Stalinism and its decomposition. Its components are much less homogeneous than were the participants in the Kienthal and Zimmerwald conferences during World War I, all of whom came from the Second International and its tradition. So a long genesis will be required, with common debates and experiences allowing it to develop reciprocal confidence, before the conditions for a large regroupment of revolutionary forces mature, something that we very much want.
For now, in this historical perspective, we commit ourselves to taking initiatives or to answering others' initiatives favourably, every time that we find it possible to establish links between revolutionary forces on concrete tasks and take their discussions forward. This can apply to new forces as well as to revolutionary organizations of different origins evolving under the impact of the current world developments. This concerns as much a mass force like the Brazilian PT as embryonic revolutionary currents like the radical socialist left from Eastern Europe and the former USSR. It can be expressed at first in political campaigns, or else in public meetings. It can take the form of national regroupments, or close bilateral or multilateral relations. With this same outlook, we have regularly opened our international cadre school to other forces of the revolutionary movement.
8. NOT ONLY IS THERE NO CONTRADICTION between building our own current, the Fourth International, and working for setting up in the future a broad international regroupment of revolutionary forces, but there is a complementarity which is, we think, essential. We reject any sectarian approach to building our own movement, we also reject any monolithic, non-pluralistic view of the international regroupment to be built, be it a simple forum or even a new International.
We recognize and defend tendency rights at both levels, national and international. Besides, the heterogeneity of the world revolutionary movement is such that the broader an international regroupment is today, the greater chance there is that we will be led to maintain our international tendency— this free choice will depend, in the last analysis, on our assessment of the common platform of the regroupment and the weight of our current's specificity in relation to our allies.
In any case, a discussion on this point is absolutely premature. What is essential is to agree first on the principle itself of a world revolutionary regroupment on the basis of democratic pluralism. Today, even though it is possible to make progress in the unity of the revolutionary movement in one country or another, the unevenness of these processes is such that the worldwide regroupment of revolutionaries unfortunately will not be on the agenda in the coming years. This, of course, should not stop us from continuing our efforts in that direction. But one should not confuse what can be achieved nationally with what is possible beyond state borders or continents: there is an obvious qualitative difference, an essential discontinuity between the two levels, weighing on both sides.
To sum up, we should always avoid two sorts of errors:
• Taking only into account building the International and hence turning our backs to the possibilities of fusion of the revolutionary left which can appear in some countries;
• Taking only into account the national framework and thus watering lown, or abandoning, our specific and intangible programmatic principle of the international organization of revolutionaries.
Moreover, our rejection of monolithism is not limited to a defense
Building the International today *
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 63 of the right of tendency. In a broader sense, pluralism is the inclusion of new methods of functioning that are not simply juridical rights. Issued raised by attempts to feminize our organizations (irrespective of the degree of success in any individual case) represent a means of responding to the diversity of experience. The emphasis on feminization is never simply a drive to improve women's statistical standing in the organization. We have learned to introduce new internal traditions and methods of integrating and valuing the contributions of all members and their sectoral experiences in a single organization which depart from the models of previous generations.
broad ens wilf of puralism in this
Continuing to enrich our task of renewing our ranks from the present new generation. Given the objective situation and the prevailing lack of belief in the socialist project, young militants do not (and should not) judge the anti-bureaucratic, democratic traditions of a revolutionary organization on the basis of tendency rights alone. These are seen as an integral part, which is necessary but insufficient, of a modern conception of organizational democracy and pluralism. 9. THE MAIN FEATURE OF TODAY'S international context for our party-building tasks cannot be the weakening of immediate revolutionary perspectives, real and undeniable fact though this is. By definition, immediate revolutionary perspectives fluctuate enormously, depending in large part on volatile political phenomena. On the other hand, the general recomposition of the political landscape of the world left affects a much more important structural factor. In that sense, and regardless of the main trend which appeared immediately after it, the downfall of Stalinism is, first of all, the freeing of an immense class potential chained for many years by Stalinist bureaucracies in power or in the opposition. It was also followed by the ruin of the anti-Trotskyist prejudices propagated by the Stalinists. A real, although modest, expansion of our movement is still possible, both in the countries where the International could not work in the past and in those where our sections can gain credit and influence among the vanguard and in the mass movement, despite the present difficulties in recruiting.
In the cases where we join other forces in a common party building, we involve ourselves—unlike in the purely "entryist" intervention in the mass reformist parties—-in the long term building of a common organization, on the basis of a real militant experience. However, for this process to run smoothly, it is indispensable for us to have a mechanism whereby we can monitor, in a democratic framework, the progression of political strategic agreements with our allies. This is why we demand for the supporters of our current the right to confer and maintain their Fourth International membership in ways which of course can be negotiated, but which must allow them to participate fully in the International's life—-while being entirely loyal to the common national organization and its own political homogenization at the highest levelthat of the platform laid out above, for which we will always fight untiringly—could justify the complete elimination of our distinct existence in the framework of a common organization. But in that case the common organization should be able to be closely associated with our International, if not to join it. When these conditions are not fulfilled, premature self-dissolution is always a very risky and dangerous gamble. The failure of the experiment by our comrades in the Spanish state bears
At the same time, we need to convince our partners that ongoing membership to the International should not be a source of tension in the unified framework; it is rather a pre-condition for healthy and frank relations. We should be able to convince them that our International membership is not moved by some sort of dogmatism nor sectarianism, but that for us it is a critical aspect of the general revolutionary socialist project to which we adhere and that there is no way we can abandon it. An aspect that we cannot be asked to abandon in the name of the fusion without putting into danger the inviolable principle ot democratic pluralism in a united revolutionary organization.
The proof of our loyalty and revolutionary frankness lies precisely in the fact that we push for the tightest teamwork possible between the unified organization and our International. It is with this aim, in particular, that we invite our allies in the united organizations international meetings as observers. And the International as a whole has to show its usefulness, and convince the organization participation of Fourth International members as such in a national organization is a plus and not a
Certainly, each national case is different from the rest. The political in which the local recompositions take place are always different. The programmatic, political and organizational process is thus always specific. We do not want, in any way whatsoever, to elaborate a general theory of regroupments and fusions. Besides, the international situation nowadays does not favour the homogeneity of national regroupment processes (that could have been the case, for example, if building a new International was to be articulated around a victorious revolution in a big country, as in the historical precedent of the Third International). 10. TRUE, THE WHOLE ARGUMENT ABOVE is only valid and credible when related to our own conception of the Fourth International such as it has been shaped through the years, by its experiences and mistakes
Especially in our 12th World Congress in 1985 we again rejected the idea of an International in which the national party-building policies were decided centrally and the sections had to apply the same universal or regional orientation. We have rejected the pretension, born in other times, of being the "world party of revolution" in favour of a much more sober selfdefinition as a minority, though specific and essential, tributary of the world
* Building the International today revolutionary movement; a framework for common thinking and political and militant coordination of national organizations; an international grouping with a flexible, democratic and pluralist functioning.
The Fourth International is not formed of local agencies in thrall to a "centre". Its national organizations are anchored in the real class struggle of their countries, though working together to build the International, and even allocating members and material means to it. International democratic centralism is notand cannot without centralism-be the replica of it in a national organization. The defence of majority positions by Fourth International sections is not imperative; it is consented freely. It is not imposed through discipline, and sections can publicly express their own opinions when in minority, insofar they do not breach the limits of anticapitalism and anti-imperialism, which would be tantamount to breaking with the International.
In fact, we have practised pluralism within our organization for a very long time, and we claim it to be an integral part of the current revolutionary programme. Far from being a handicap, for us, the democratic diversity of points of view in the Fourth International is one of our main strong points. This plurality is exercised in the framework of a strategic convergence which naturally flows from our common programmatic orientation, and which shows through the essentially identical reactions by our sections on different major global political events, often before any consultation. 11. EVEN THOUGH THE CENTRALIST conception of the International, even that of the Comintern of the tirst period, has to be abandoned nowadays, revolutionary internationalism cannot be limited to simply promoting solidarity and exchange networks. The foundation of proletarian internationalism has always been, and is more than ever, the need for the working class from all countries to unite to jointly confront capitalism, 64 International Viewpoint which has an increasingly global concrete existence. This is even clearer when the international institutions dominated by imperialism, be they political like the UN or economic like the IMF, are more active than ever; at a time when capitalist institutions are being set up in vast global areas, such as Maastricht Europe, or the North American Free Trade Agreement.
At present, and taking into account historical evolution, what is needed is not less internationalist practice, nor simply maintaining what has existed up to now, but more internationalism, more political and organizational coordination, activities conceived and organized jointly by revolutionary organizations beyond state borderlines. This demand becomes even more urgent and acute with the disastrous rise of narrow nationalisms and ethnic particularisms, and the ravaging series of insane massacres and destruction that they bring about. Internationalism is today, once again in the century, the outright antithesis of barbarism. However, an adequate internationalist consciousness cannot wholly flourish without an adequate political and organizational practice, without taking part in building an international organization at the same time as building national organizations.
The International that we should
• An organic instrument, capable of making commitments to joint work, setting up political campaigns and activities of several sorts at the level of the whole world, the main areas, and groups of countries;
• An instrument with the means and cadres to offer solid aid for building the revolutionary movement in many countries where it is still embryonic;
• An organized instrument to work for developing revolutionary socialist currents within the reformist-led workers' movements or in nationalistrun national movements, etc.
The delay accumulated by the world revolutionary movement is immense. Unfortunately, it is not the revolution which is making the most progress in today's world but the right-wing extremism which is emerging all around the world in this new and terrible epoch of capitalist decay. It would be a crime to rely on mere spontaneity or simple solidarity to cope with all the above mentioned tasks, using the alibi of respecting national specificities. We should consciously work for this, and to achieve it an . international organization is needed. 12. THAT IS WHY-REGARDLESS OF THE present possibilities for regroupment in some countries and the necessary debate with our allies on building an international regroupment, or even a
International-we unbendingly pursue-on the national and world levels-our task of building the Fourth International, the only "really existing" one. We must pursue the effort we started to improve its inner functioning, as well as the solidity and efficiency of its structures and
We must keep up the effort to help the development of new organizations tied to our International in the countries where we do not exist and where the independent constitution of such organizations would constitute a step forward in the revolutionary struggle. It is appropriate here to quote the organisational functioning that we adopted in 1991:
"... deciding to build a section proclaiming itself as such, as an immediate task in a country, is not a timeless, dogmatic principle. This is the method of sects, who consider sections as "local agencies" of a world centre (which is often, de facto, an all-powerful national leadership). For us, sections are determined first of all in relation to the revolutionary tasks in their country; it is according to these tasks that sections will build themselves. Outside of the problem of choosing between autonomous party-building or building a tendency in a larger party when it is possible to do this in an open way, in some countries there is also the problem of making a judgement about a revolutionary organization that actually exists: is it on trajectory of responding to revolutionary tasks in its country and therefore converging with the tasks that we have set ourselves? Or is it degenerating? In the latter case, has it reached a point of no return?
"Thus, the decision to build a section is not automatic in the short- or medium-term in every country. On the other hand, any decision to the contrary must necessarily be accompanied by an effort to diffuse our programmatic gains and our press in the countries concerned, revolutionaries, with the goal of convincing the greatest possible
Building the International today*
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 65 numbers of our ideas. In the same way the International has to develop collaborative and trustworthy relations with revolutionary organizations existing in a number of countries that can help win them to the perspective of reconstituting a mass, revolutionary International."
It could in fact be much more positive for the future of the revolutionary movement and for a positive change of our own International to be linked to the fate of revolutionary or radical currents which already have a real social implantation, in order to help them, learn from them, and finally to envisage together building a revolutionary organization - rather than rushing to plant a flag in what could turn out to be a barren little allotment. 13. THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGES in this period of far-reaching political recomposition raise another related aspect: theoretical and programmatic elaboration take on a particular importance. This flows from our conception of open and critical Marxism, from the conviction that we do not have the answers to everything, that a re-examination of the old concepts is necessary. The documents that we have written on women's oppression (1979) and on socialist democracy (1985), our Manifesto (1992) as well as the document now being developed on socialist ecology, bear witness to this wish to bring our programme up to date. So does the document on socialist ecology that we are currently drafting.
There are very many questionssometimes very complex onesopened by the evolution of the world in the last decades which are today open fields of work for Marxism. We should contribute with all other energy to this research and to this effort of programmatic updating. This effort will be all the more fruitful to the extent that it is a collective effort. Collective in our own ranks, which is neither obvious nor automatic, but also collective with our allies in the world revolutionary movement and with our privileged partners in the milieu of research of Marxist orientation. Our International Education - and Research! — Institute, through its different study sessions and seminars (on women, economics...) is already modestly but surely the place of such a collective effort in both senses.
We have to demonstrate that an International is an irreplaceable instrument on this terrain as well. 14. THE CREDIBILITY OF A NEW international socialist project, in today's world, will largely depend on the demonstration made in the main imperialist countries of the capacity to relaunch embody a revolutionary and political project faced with capitalism and its state structure. The countries of the "centre" remain the decisive link in any world-wide capitalist strategy. The between the classes which are established there are of major importance for the outcome of struggles throughout the world. The only ally which can hamper to or paralyse the action of the imperialist powers on which the struggles in the dominated countries can call is the mass movement in these same imperialist countries. The Gulf War was a striking and tragic demonstration of this reality.
• For the International to be seen as a pole of reference it has to be able to assert itself as a credibly political force in the main imperialist countries. But at the present time, and not unrelated to the socio-economic changes in these countries over the last decade, the organizations of the International there are very weak. In Germany, Japan, and in the United States our sections are very weak and divided. In Britain we are largely outstripped by two revolutionary organizations which have traditionally been sectarian towards us. In France our organization has been weakened during the 1980s and suffers from internal divisions.
It is an urgent priority to reverse this trend. Great attention should be given to this question because we cannot claim to exist as an International in the world today without a significant presence in the main industrialized countries. Our organizations in the dominated countries will themselves rapidly be threatened, given the usefulness of the contribution constantly made to them by the sections in the imperialist countries through the International.
• Another factor which will weigh heavily in the fight to give back credibility to the socialist project is the emergence of a significant socialist current, both anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist, in the post-Stalinist societies. We have put party-building in these countries, conceived in a non-sectarian fashion, among the priority tasks of the International. Our balance sheet, like that of the anti-capitalist left in general, remains overall very limited. The first reason is that it is precisely in these countries, for obvious reasons, that the loss of credibility of socialism has been the greatest and that illusions in capitalism are most wide-spread. But sooner rather than later these will fade away confronted with the concrete experience of the torments of capitalist restoration. That is to say that above all we must not give up our efforts in that part of the world. We should, on the other hand, discuss with our comrades in the countries concerned on the methods of propaganda and party-building the most appropriate to their countries—a frequent error is to reproduce the traditional forms used in capitalist countries.
• It is still the dominated countries which are today the weakest links in the world imperialist system. It is still in these countries, at the present time, that there are the biggest possibilities for building revolutionary or potentially revolutionary mass parties. It is in the direction of the dominated countries that our International has directed the greatest share of central resources, both material and human. It will continue in this direction, exploring in particular the possibilities offered in countries experiencing a new radicalization.
* Building the International today
15. The emergence of a credible socialist current will also rely on its ability to be seen as representing the aspirations of all sectors of the exploited and oppressed populations. This is not a simple banality that it is enough to repeat.
The Fourth International has progressed in its understanding of women's struggles and the mass women's and feminist movements. For the first time at the last World Congress, there was a specific resolution concerning the dynamic of women's exclusion from the political process and political parties and its effects within the Fourth International. The Congress adopted this resolution, thus specifying the positive action neded for women to take their place within the Fourth International.
This resolution represented an important advance in our understanding of how to build our organizations, and relate them to mass movements etc.
However, we have not adequately explored the implications of how the struggles of women express the changes taking place in society, and how the priority given to feminization is directly linked with the new tasks and renewed forms and themes of struggles that we have and will encounter.
In analysing the potential outcome of any given social and political situation, we must integrate a number of elements that arise from women's specific situation as women, combined with their class, ethnic or age status.
A starting point should be the continuing mass integration of women into the workforce-whether formal, informal or unemployed workersalthough in sharply gender-defined forms. This in turn increasingly involves women in social struggles, whether as workers, urban dwellers, peasants, consumers, etc.
However, the recent arrival of women in the workforce, and indeed in social movements in general, combined with the general trend of women's exclusion from public and collective life, tends to place women in a 66 International Viewpoint marginal situation within the traditional organisations of social and political life. They can thus, at times, be pushed in a more radical direction and act in defiance of the traditional leaderships.
The continuing penetration of general ideas of women's equality and rights, as a result of battles fought by the women's movement, throughout the population, influences the way in which women raise and defend "traditional" demands (for example linking the fight for pay rises with a fight to increase the status accorded to what is seen as a specifically "female" job). However this wide-spread acceptance of women's right to equality is not unchallenged. The right-wing, and in particular the growing religious fundamentalist movements, target questions of women and the family particularly. Without a determined response from women such attacks will not be defeated.
This determined response is however not guaranteed, given the decline of a radical, organised feminist movement. The growing institutionalisation of the movement through recuperation by sections of bourgeois political formations or integration into NGOs, as well as the ideological attacks of the "post-feminists", weakened revolutionary, subversive aspect of feminism that played such an important role in winning women to revolutionary perspectives in an earlier period. The failure to renew feminist discourse, demands and ideals makes this situation worse.
Ihis is not however sımply the result of developments specific to the feminist movement, but a reflection of the general decline of revolutionary radicalism and the lack of a liberation perspective. In certain cases it could be the reaction by women to attacks on them that stimulates a general political radicalisation. The contradiction, especially for the younger generations, between the prevailing ideas of women's rights and specific attacks, for example on abortion rights, could be such a spark.
For the organisations of the workers' movement, including revolutionary organizations, to be able to attract these potential new radicalising layers, they must overcome specific dissatisfaction expressed by radical women with traditional forms of political and social organisation and rebuild temselves on a different basis, including the idea of parity, i.e. that women should have their full place in decision-making. Such a programmatic and organisational renewal is vital for these organisations in the present period. Without such an effort including the integration of women's contributions it will be impossible to develop a fully-rounded socialist alternative.
Our commitment to integrating these parameters into our analysis is not simply an abstract one. It should determine how we understand the priorities for revolutionary intervention. This should be one of the major elements of the profile of all the sections sympathising organisations the Fourth International; but this will be impossible unless we act on the proposals contained in the resolution of the last World Congress, both at an international level and within all our national organisations. 16. A GOOD NUMBER OF TODAY'S revolutionary organizations, including those of the Fourth International, were built under the impetus of the struggles and discussions of the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. Not only has this impetus died away now but the political generation which it produced desperately needs to be renewed. This will depend essentially on a new wave of youth radicalization. But this does not relieve us, quite the contrary, from the need to make an urgent and priority effort to recruit youth, to educate young political leaderships. "Give their place to women and to youth" are principles that are more relevant than ever.
Certainly is it not simply a question of renewing leaderships. The struggles and revolts which develop among women and young people express the change in society in the most striking tashion. The priority given to our organızations' feminization and rejuvenation will also thus be a way of putting us more in tune with the new tasks and renewed forms and themes of struggles and emancipation movements.
Ernest Mandel
Study Centre in Amsterdam
This Centre has been created by Ernest's colleagues at the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam.
Ernest helped create the institute in 1982. Since then, hundreds of militants from all parts of the world have taken part in seminars, courses and conferences. All this was supported with a programme of publications in English, French and Castillian, and an unique library -25,000 books and pamphlets, in a wide range of languages
The Centre is an example of the kind of internationalism in which Ernest Mandel believed. Directed by the needs of its students. Enriching all those who participated in its activities.
Ernest himself was a regular participant in these events. He gave dozens of presentations, and participated in hundreds of debates. Much of this material is available for consultation and study on paper or audio tape.
But Ernest also came to learn. To meet with new militants from Eastern Europe, North Africa and South America, and test his ideas against their experience.
The new Ernest Mandel Study Centre will continue Ernest's favourite activities. It will bring third world militants, socialists and feminists, to Amsterdam to discuss economics, politics, and building the revolutionary alternative. It will facilitate the translation of important texts into the languages tomorrow's revolutionaries will speak. And it will
Send donations to "IIRE: Mandel Study Centre", account 630-0113884-65, at Caisse Privée Banque, Brussels, Belgium. For more information write to the IIRE: PO Box 53290, 1007 RG Amsterdam, Netherlands. Fax +31 20/673 2106. E-mail <iire@antenna.nl>
International Viewpoint n° 273 place Ernest's invaluable stock of articles, speeches and books at the disposition of these new generations of militants.
The Centre is just beginning. We need funds to start these activities. A regular newsletter will be sent to all those who want to support us, so that you know how your money is being spent.