The Political situation in imperialist Europe *
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 29 the seat of power, has been put under very strong pressure by the bourgeoisie to openly and at great length confront the working class, to align the latter according to the requirements of a harsh austerity policy and of a reorganisation of the economic apparatus.
This has been a formative political experience for the working class
Social Democracy has crossed to a new stage in its integration with the capitalist system -an essential factor in its long process of into a movement independent of the working class. With the weakening of its organic links with the working class and the growing instability of its electorate, its existence as a privileged bureaucratic apparatus depends more than ever on its partial) with the real workers movement. That would be a real historic turning point, because the fusion between the two, at the end of the 19th century, was the origin of social democracy.
This does not mean that social democracy is irredeemably incapable of "turning" politically.
Firstly, social degeneration and electoral disappearance should not be confused. With the generalised discredit of all the governmental parties, a return of the electoral pendulum is in the end probable. But it will be necessary to check, with every members, activists, its indirect impact on workers and youth, in the union movement, and especially, in local and municipal political life, etc.
4.5. This overall evolution of social democracy explains why no socialist left wing ("centrist"), solid in terms of size, of political platform and combativity, has been able to form all through the 80's, in any party in imperialist Europe. An internal reform of these parties is more than ever an illusion.
6) If separation constitutes the fundamental tendency of social
SIRNTES SHESTE insertion into the state apparatus; and now its access to private financial LONTREL PONIEST resources. In these conditions (to which should be added scandals with a devastating effect on morale), a whole (new) section of its traditional Socialistreformist identity has disappeared
This displacement of Social Democracy at the heart of capitalism has provoked a social displacement at the heart of the social-democratic apparatus itself: the 80's selected a new leadership layer, who lived in close administrative, management and media elites. Its rise, its living standards and career prospects are directly linked to the "modernisation" of capitalism, and to its capacity to reduce the weight of the trade unions in society and to impose an impoverishment on the masses. This social existence of a privileged layer in capitalism has a big effect in the social democratic parties.
This new stage for social democracy is linked to the new historic stage of capitalism in the 80's. It came about through the political struggle that social democracy lead all through the years 1980-1992, against the working class and youth. In sum, it represents a radical deterioration of its organic and socio-psychological links with labour.
(4) The limitations of this trend of separation should be underlined.
There is no situation without outcome, either for capitalism or the social democratic apparatus. We have to understand it in terms not of possible disappearance, but of a new stage in its history. On this level, we are talking about a real qualitative jump. If it crystallises and follows through, it would mean separation (total or
### NON L ASPHYXIE
CTAIRE "re-launch", how the links between social democracy, the working class and its organisations have changed. Secondly, some leaderships also understand the mechanics of the situation. They will seek to distance themselves from neoliberal politics and to tie up again with a certain autonomy, but without risking leaving the orbit of political power. In fact, the possible contradictions amongst the bourgeoisie as to a change in economic policy follow the exact outlines of the possible daring of social democratic policy (cf. the enthusiastic political rallying to "Clintonism", including left currents of European social democracy).
Despite the tendency to separation and destucturing, we should not underestimate, particularly when compared to our organisational and electoral weakness, the maintained material and social strength of this social democracy on the level of
FOAUSTERIE
democracy, we have to be aware of its contradictions, and concrete policy. In particular, there is at the start a implantation and history between the countries of the North and the centre of Europe and those of the South. In certain countries (Northern and central Europe) where social democracy has historically been a majority in the working class for more than a century, it has succeeded in sending deep roots into the working population, to the point of forming a real "countersociety", and has undergone a process of fusion with the state apparatus, and to a certain point, with the economic apparatus over 70 years. The distancing ot the social links with the working class and its extinction as a party of workers activity has been accelerating over the last 25 years. But it is a gradual process which is taking place in a very big and very compact social body. In the countries of Southern Europe, the
* The political situation in imperialist Europe roots of the social democratic current have been weaker, since the origin of the workers movement. Between 1970 and 1990, on the other hand, it went through a spectacular electoral and organisational rise. Its political and social crisis is today all the more spectacular and dangerous (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal). It is the crisis and the mutation of the communist parties -in relation to the development of social democracy over the last 30 years- which determines the concrete dialectic of the "traditional" workers movement. 3. OUR CONSTRUCTION 3.1. THE CURRENT PERIOD AND THE CRISIS OF THE SUBJECTIVE FACTOR
The bourgeois offensive, multidirectional on a world scale, has undeniably carried society to the right, pushed the workers movement on to the defensive and considerably weakened the revolutionary and anticapitalist current.
It means not just a simple decline in the balance of forces, which could be rapidly overcome by a social mobilisation. It is the "subjective factor" as a whole which has been hit head on.
This crisis is composed of three important aspects:
(1) an acute political impotence, as the economic and institutional globalisation of capitalism takes place in the absence of efficient political and organisational instruments to confront
(2) a profound crisis of the Socialist perspective for humanity as much from the point of view of which society to construct, as which concrete strategy to get there). This factor is a constituent element of the political impotency.
(3) unprecedented modifications affecting the workers movement -its strength, its identity, its confidence, its consciousness -and a political mutation affecting all currents in a particular way (Social Democracy, Stalinism, revolutionary left). A historic cycle is closing without a new one opening.
This enormous crisis of the "subjective factor" has two practical effects which are important for the workers and social organisations, including the revolutionary left:
(1) a dramatic ebb in the degree of spontaneous Socialist consciousness of the masses -with consequences for the energy and radicalism of struggles;
(2) a very clear ebb regarding the degree of genuine political activity and organisational involvement of the most advanced elements.
In summary: we are passing through a very particular non-revolutionary period, with following as principal interconnected elements:
(1) an unrelenting offensive of international capitalism, the spearhead of which is its political economy (globalisation + deregulation + unlimited competition);
(2) a pronounced instability of the "new world order, at different levels: economic (with strong inter-imperialist contradictions), political (absence of institutional instruments for regulation on a global level; upheavals in the big countries in each regional zone, particularly in Europe), social (threat of response to the offensive, of explosion,
(3) the maintenance of a multitude of oppositions with many different forms, whose activity remains remarkably high compared to the unfavourable subjective conditions, but whose level of politicisation and organisation is on a completely different level compared to the period before 1980 and certainly,
The major feature of this non-revolutionary period is not the disappearance of struggles, but above all their fragmented and staggered character, and their non-resolution and, in this respect, the (partial) retreat of the vanguard between two (waves of)
struggles or mobilisations.
The weakening of this broad (political and trade union) vanguard, traditionally functioning amongst the
/ memory / substrata/alternative, has aggravated the deterioration in the balance of forces between the classes. This contributes, for the moment, to the weakening of the links among the class and its mass organisations and, indirectly, to the fact that the big mobilisations and accompanying radicalisation no longer spontaneously produce an increase re-politicisation and political involvement (particularly amongst youth).
The ebb of political conviction, of militant energy and organisational involvement of the broad vanguard derives more directly from this crisis in the subjective factor. It is clearly more acute than the ebb of the "crude" social balance of forces on this terrain.
We need a radical, visible and spectacular breakdown of the machinery of the class enemy to open a breach, reverse the flow of things and to reopen the Socialist perspective. As long as this intermediate period lasts, struggles must be strengthened, resistance organised and cadres recruited. That should be on a par with the reorganisation of the social movement through a series of defensive battles and the accumulation of political experiences.
Thus this non-revolutionary period allows us an intervention into struggles and an opening for audacious political initiatives. At the same time it places a great handicap on the construction of a revolutionary organisation but opens the way to a regroupment policy responding to the current level of consciousness and organisation. 3.2. DEFENDING THE POLITICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL GAINS OF OUR ORGANISATIONS
3.2.1 Our organisations have accumulated organisational gains, but in an uneven way from country to country. But not to the point of being big, significant parties in the workers movement. That the collapse of Stalinism and the deep discredit of Social Democracy has not pushed the revolutionary Marxist alternative to the forefront is a disappointment. Our programme has not become the axis of a new regroupment in the workers and social movement and its vanguard.
On the contrary, the overpowering emergence of a new non-revolutionary period has cut into these political and organisational gains. It leaves us temporarily without a perspective of redevelopment. The political generation which made this effort is all the more hit by this decline and this political stalemate than a new political generation late in arriving in numbers to take up the relay.
The Political situation in imperialist Europe *
14th World Congress of the Fourth International
3.2.2. The battle to defend our organisations thus becomes fundamental. In general (according to the size and political place of the section), it does not mean a struggle for survival in the strict sense of the word, but of maintaining a critical mass in order to redevelop the organisation in the best subjective conditions, once the political cycle reopens.
The cycles of radicalisation (revolutionary or semi-revolutionary) since 1945 in western Europe, have been extended in time and limited in their scope for political confrontation. This slowness of history tends to destroy the gains won, stopping a process of growth, a lasting social implantation, a visible political existence for the duration.
3.2.3. We must resist the pressure to dissolve our organisations. Our own experience has shown that to give way on programmatic or organisational principals has not helped us to maintain or develop ourselves.
The whole objective and subjective situation demands the retention of an organised revolutionary Marxist current both to understand reality and to guide our day to day intervention in the class struggle. And also to maintain the perspective of Socialist revolution, because it is precisely the abandonment of this perspective which is the base of the real liquidationist currents on the revolutionary left.
The defence of the structural organisation and of the general programme of our sections does not resolve any of the questions of concrete analysis, of political line, of mass intervention and of the concrete organisational system ot the party. But a party-building project is based around the "preservation of our gains" (self-affirmation of our political identity, propagandist activity, campaigns without root in the real social movement) will lead to sectarian marginalisation and demoralisation.
The real stakes of the debate about the defence of our organisations rest in the redefinition of our party-building tactic in the current conditions.
The problem is not so much one of "conserving to survive" as one of "evolving in order to grow". 3.3. THE NECESSARY MUTATION
OF OUR ORGANISATIONS
We must bring about a real programmatic mutation and a political reorientation which puts the party building project in tune with the changes in today's world.
3.3.1. The reformulation of a new Socialist ("emancipatory") project and of an overall political perspective is a decisive question.
This is not a preliminary to the unleashing of struggles. But it is completely indispensable to give them their full force of social transformation and their visibility, which they have largely lost. One Socialist project is going unprecedented crisis. "Real Socialism" -in the absence of an anti-bureaucratic has a much devastating effect than predicted.
Marxism itself is being questioned by the left of the workers and social movement. It is today marginalised in the workers and social movement, and in society. Its presuppositions are no longer accepted as evident: the existence of an exploited class of wage-earners, the decisive force in the radical society; its emancipatory capacity through collective action, the conquest of political power and the replacement of the ruling class; the possibility of building a new Socialist society, identified with a planned economy based on the collective ownership of the means of production and new forms of collective life.
Other emancipatory "paradigms" (ecology, feminism, third worldism, humanist ethics, etc.) have moved to the left, showing up the gaps in Marxism as propagated by the different currents of the traditional workers movement. They have commenced an ideological struggle against Marxism on it's own ground. They have won a large audience amongst the critical left. They open up vital social questions which have taken on a new dimension (the global ecological crisis, persistent women's oppression, the descent into the abyss of the "third world").
Updating our Marxism implies the abandonment of a "standardised" Marxism immediately useful to day to day activism and which could function with a certain efficiency in society and the social movement, as long as it's fundamental presuppositions were not put into question and the Socialist perspective was universally acknowledged, notably by the class enemy. This updating necessitates a patient reformulation of the fundamentals of Marxist theory and of its capacity to adjust to the novelty of today s world. and to turn boldly to the future. In order to "defend Marxism" we have to proceed to a renewed radical critique of the actual "modern" contradictions of bourgeois society in order to strengthen our identity and to make it a weapon of revolutionary struggle.
3.3.2. Our programmatic answers are not sufficient.
Sections of the Fourth International have engaged, stepped by step, through their intervention into struggles and their political reflection, in the elaboration of a new programme. The experience is meeting with great difficulty in progressing the analysis and finding a new consensus amongst the broad left to act together.
The transitional programme is directly affected:
• first, we are not in a period of "pre-revolutionary agitation, propaganda and organisation" (Trotsky, 1938), but moreover in a non revolutionary period of real political impotency where the masses and their struggles are bereft of adequate political and organisational tools and without hope of being able to change society;
"the transition" is obviously not on the agenda for the popular masses,
31
* The political situation in imperialist Europe and the definition of the new society, resulting from the new transition, is not evident today.
• second: how can we build the
"bridge" today which starts from the
"ACTUAL conditions and the ACTUAL consciousness of broad layers of the working class" to lead to "the one and only conclusion...: the conquest of power by the proletariat". What is this today's
"consciousness" and how can we effectively "convince"? • three: how precisely should we address ourselves to youth, in situation where "a generation is wearing itself out, having carried on its' shoulders the old programme".
The difficulties of going to a new programme, based on the transitional method, are considerable.
• One: the updating of our programme cannot consist of additions to a l pre-existing programme. We have to reformulate new programmatic body responding to the new world situation and to the social movement, the agent in the transition to
Socialism.
• Iwo: Obviously, the large programmatic base and a series of demands which were shared for 50 or
70 years, at least verbally, by the workers movement in its diversity, has broken up. It is very difficult today to put together a set of anticapitalist demands, to address ourselves to the mass of workers and their organisations, and to move on to agitation, i.e. to effectively bring about the unity in action of the whole workers and social movement.
• Three: the workers movement under its reformist leadership is not a self-evident lever to contribute to the revolt of society today. Where will "the real movement" (K. Marx) of the class happen? The political situation does not give clear indications for the moment as to the path that the working class and youth will take, when they get started again.
Rebuilding the links within the existing social movement, through debate, proposals, common action, etc., is an obligatory path to apply the transitional method on the terrain. 32 International Viewpoint
3.3.3. We have to rethink our party-building tactics.
The balance sheet since the middle of the 80's is clear: we are meeting difficulties in building revolutionary organisations. These difficulties grew dramatically after 1989-91. reduction in number of our activists and practical means puts the political space we have conquered as a party in
This has provoked a discussion on our party building tactic. There is no easy answer, no quick way out, no short cut. It can be neither general nor continental. It will have take into account concrete aspects: national conditions of class struggle, peculiarity of the workers movement and the left, size and influence of our organisation, and our practical militant means. 4. OUR PARTY BUILDING TACTIC
4.1. The independent tactic.
It is possible to continue a party building project through independent tactics based on intervention as a party in struggles and the social movement with the objective of direct recruitment to the project of Socialist revolution. This is true especially where a threshold of influence and organisation has been crossed. It is possible to intervene in struggle, to use certain specific instruments (cf. the youth organisation), and to make revolutionary Socialist propaganda. But we cannot avoid being aware of general subjective difficulties which affect any such project today. Neither can we avoid concerning ourselves with the effects that a prolonged independent construction, in the current conditions will lead to in the political and organisational functioning of our organisations.
4.2. The tactic of political regroupment
Several sections have engaged in a policy of regroupment or have opened this perspective: a protracted electoral bloc, permanent political alliance, entry into another party, confederation of autonomous political organisations, "new" rapprochement "from the outside" with a current of a traditional workers party, etc. In each case, the organisation has to redefine its political functioning and to rethink its internal functioning.
By regroupment tactic, we do not mean a uniform tactic, but a political understanding of the very important mutation affecting the workers and social movement, and the political necessity, whatever the precise organisational form, of approaching the left currents breaking away from it.
Two considerations should serve as guidelines:
• placing ourselves in the best political position in the workers movement, to participate in the break-through that happen;
• being at the heart of an organised coming together of all the left currents, and having regard to the decay of the big traditional organisations;
The organisational aim is to find new levers to build our organisations, their strength of numbers, their political influence, their self-confidence.
4.3. The concept of "regroupment" is not new
Since the 30's, we have never conceived the construction of the Revolutionary Party as a linear process, since a very small revolutionary Marxist nucleus was confronted with a workers movement, solidly built, with deep roots, a mass character and controlled by a bureaucratic reformist apparatus.
In the 30's, our "unity work" was not limited to the sole tactic of a united front with the big reformist organisations, but also involved a political and practical rapprochement with centrist / lett centrist organisations or currents, open to making a qualitative leap with us towards a mass revolutionary party. The "short term" entryist tactic was the organisational conclusion of this method.
In the post-war years, the tactic of entryism in the big reformist parties (Stalinist and social democrat) was presuppositions, but in a different political period (dramatic reduction in class activity; quasi-monopoly of the traditional apparatuses in the workers movement; perspective of world war; then the slow maturing process of a workers vanguard taking place exclusively inside the CPs or Socialist
The period opened by 68 had imposed a turn to independent party-building: the actuality of the revolution in the world, including in capitalist Europe; the possibility of rapidly winning many activists from the radicalising youth; initiatives and mass campaigns which