The Political situation in imperialist Europe *
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 33 influenced society and the workers movement; the possibility of outflanking Social Democracy or Stalinism, in certain sectors of political and social life; a pole of attraction towards the base of these parties and the trade union movement.
If some regroupment tactics existed (whether towards the left in the traditional workers movement or towards other revolutionary currents), they were conceived as subordinate and complementary to the independent tactic.
Atterwards, with the worsening political situation, it became a means of intervening in the crisis of a declining revolutionary left, to save a section of it.
4.4 The actuality of a regroupment policy, as an axis of party building in the new period
Two major subjective factors lead in this direction:
(1) The revolutionary left has clearly stopped growing. It is struggling for survival although it has accumulated a significant capital of members.
(2) Important shifts are taking place inside the traditional workers movement, still clearly a majority in the working class, or of groups leaving it.
This time, the recomposition is not taking place in a workers movement on the rise and which is differentiating on this basis; on but in a traditional workers movement which is weakening and breaking up
4.5. Some general trends appear in today's workers' and social movement
4.5.1. The political dynamic which had pushed the radicalisation of the broad vanguard (between 1966 and the end of the 1970's) towards the revolutionary lett has stopped and gone into reverse.
(a) Although weakened and in a small minority (especially on the electoral level, it has succeeded, in several countries, in stabilising national organisations, with a capital of cadres and militants, often well rooted in the social movement, and with a certain public notoriety and capacity for initiative. This "minimum" result should be measured against the generalised decline of militant political engagement, the internal sclerosis of Social Democracy, the weakness of union teams in the workplaces, the disappearance or weakening of the Cl's, and against the intrinsic incapacity of the Greens to build active political organisations (compared to their electoral results and their material
(b) The revolutionary left must take on the perspective of participating from the beginning in a new rise of the class
But this new take-off is conditional on the redefinition of the party-building project, permitting it to adequately get through the current
35
period. This challenge produces a harsh debate inside these organisations. Struggling for survival, the battle for self preservation often reinforces political and internal sectarianism.
In general, a priority fusion process or one of regroupment in the direction of other extreme left organisations is of little use. This does not exclude forms of collaboration.
4.5.2. A major change: traditional workers movement, still the epicentre of resistance to the capitalist ottensive, is no longer the sole representative of the emancipatory project of a society free of exploitation and oppression.
(1) Other political-programmatic "hypotheses" , other organisational forms and forms of activity, often breaking with the political culture of the organised workers movement (reformist and revolutionary), of "new" social and social movements (the Church, ecology, feminism, third worldism, peace, poverty, the urban question, humanism/ethics, etc.) occupy an important space. A whole series of radical politico-ideological ideas and currents exist inside them. They have their own ideological coherence and try to intervene in the political and institutional field. But often, they are not ready to form a party or political organisation, to bring together the existing political parties, or to put themselves under leadership of an organisational system with a "Leninist" type relationship between the party and social movement
To deal with them we have to fully take into account these specifics.
(2) The Green current is sometimes symbolic of the "low intensity" radicalisation, which, in countries, began by capturing a big sector of youth, in the second half of the
Initially linked to the ecological crisis, the Greens have developed into a political movement. They have elevated ecology into a project of an alternative society and have intervened in politics with a full programme. As the revolutionary left had failed without exception, between 1968-75, to form a party recognised by the working class and sanctioned by universal suffrage, the green current succeeded in capturing the votes of a young electorate and/or breaking from the traditional workers parties (West Germany, Belgium, France certainly, elsewhere less so). They thus form a formidable barrier to our politicalinstitutional breakthrough and our implantation Moreover, they have succeeded in extending their political influence amongst certain wage-earning layers and consolidating their links with sectors of the traditional workers other countries, green sensibilities have partially or largely been channelled into left or extreme left organisations (Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Spain), limiting their autonomous political expression.
Today, the Green parties are oriented towards participation in political power (central government, regional, municipal level) according to their strength. They are attected by the classic contradiction of workers' reformism. The more they progress in terms of integration into bourgeois state mechanisms and co-responsibility for the crisis of Big Capital, the more they generate contlicts internally ("neither left nor right", politics in a different way, ecology as a self-sufficient
* The political situation in imperialist Europe programme). Intervening in this impasse of the green movement is an unavoidable part of the path to a broader political regroupment.
4.5.3. The present decline of the traditional workers movement has a very negative effect on the formation of left wings (political and trade union) inside it. At this stage, that is much more true for Social Democracy than for post-Stalinism. (1) Except for the Bennite current, defeated in 1982-83 by the right of the Labour Party, no left/centrist/left centrist current has formed since the 80's inside Social Democracy, with a substantial size, an anti-capitalist programmatic base and a degree of solid organisation. If individuals, local regroupments, symbolic personalities of the Socialist left undoubtedly exist, they have not succeeded in acquiring a minimum of coherence and cohesion. After 15 years of acute social crisis and a total alignment of the social democratic leaderships around neoliberal politics, this constitutes a major fact. This is a major difference with what happened in the 30's and 50's60's. It is the direct result of the new stage of political and organisational degeneration that Social Democracy went through in the 80's. CONCLUSIONS:
This invalidates the tactical schema of the 30's (fusion with a left centrist towards building revolutionary party).
This shows the limited perspectives for work exclusively or as a priority inside the Socialist Parties, or from outside, towards the left of the Socialist
Nowhere is the membership of a social democratic party still a practical precondition for having access to common work with the trade union left.
This invalidates (except perhaps in Britain) the schema of the 50's and 60's of entryism "sui generis".
The left in the Socialist Parties generally presents the same political weaknesses as the reformist left outside. The Socialist Parties however remain the strongest current electorally in the workers movement. In many 34 International Viewpoint countries, a majority of trade union/social activists are members. But contrary to what happened in the past (distant and recent), it is no longer the place where the practical vanguard is active and organises; it is no longer an obligatory passage to have access to the workers movement.
This generally points away from a total or primarily entry project in Social Democracy. On the other hand, it does not argue against common work with the Socialist left, nor for a politically abstentionist attitude to Social Democracy.
(2) The disappearance of the world Stalinist system has plunged the CPs into a lasting and complex crisis. This involves at the same time a balance sheet of the different cycles of the Stalinist past, a programmatic redefinition and an immediate political repositioning. It involves different generations and personalities with different trajectories inside the CP.
The result is a crumbling away of the CPs and an internal differentiation in each CP. The conversion varies greatly depending on whether the CP is a very minor voice or even a groupuscule, or a party with a significant presence in the apparatus of the union movement and in the elected (and sometimes executive) institutions of the bourgeois state.
(a) Certain parties or currents (exeurocommunists) have social democratised by dissolving into the Socialist Parties or the Greens.
The PCI (now the PDS), in changing its nature, is trying to occupy the function left vacant by a social democratic party, but in the conditions of the end of the century.
(b) Other currents or parties (again the ex-eurocommunists) pitch camp in an organisational autonomy on the basis of a reformism parallel to that of Social Democracy, but still marked by their particular origin and history.
(c) Certain currents combine an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist course with a defence of a more or less explicitly Stalinist past and / or loyalty to the ex-USSR ("campism")
(d) Certain currents and parties (cf. France, Portugal) have understood that a certain political adaptation is unavoidable, but the consequent evolution happens without any true perspective for the party concerned or for the overall workers movement.
Without being inspired by a real conviction (with opportunist and sectarian zigzags) this evolution takes place under the tight control of the apparatus. This is what distinguishes these parties from the others like the PCE, PDS (West Germany) and Rifondazione.
(e) Still others (individual militants and cadres, currents or parties), blame the social democratic path for the co-management of the economic crisis and adopt a line of opposition to bourgeois and social democratic politics and adopt a line of active resistance to capitalism/imperialism, but with great ideological and political confusion.
The biggest of them (cf. PRC, PCE, PDS -West Germany) appear as the centre of political gravity in the opposition to bourgeois and social democrat politics, opening a wider political and programmatic discussion in relation to the real movement of the class struggle. At the same time the democratisation of their internal regime (breaking with the Stalinist tradition)
their great heterogeneity on the ideological and programmatic level.
These parties have succeeded in forming a new pole of attraction inside a broader left.
The outcome of these evolutions is not predetermined. Without a solid reference point since the collapse of the world Stalinist system (because they also find themselves outside the bourgeois state and the central trade union bureaucracy), they are trying to stabilise themselves (notably their place on the national political chessboard and their politico-organisational apparatus) while finding a new centre of gravity. Their priority axis is their presence inside the elected assemblies (national parliament, European parliament, municipalities), and sometimes, in local executives, while supporting or stimulating an extra-parliamentary opposition.
These evolutions substantially change the links we have with the CPs and currents coming out of them. Pirst because they unleashed a militant energy and radical conviction which is more or less important according to the country. Second, because they can reinforce an regroupment to the left of Social Democracy or even constitute the epicentre of an opposition to the system. Finally, because they can be interesting interlocutors in a political debate where we share common