A new programme and a new banner
27 April 2003
The sixth congress of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI) met near Berlin 15-20 April. Thirty-nine delegates from the sections of the LRCI, and a number of observers from REVOLUTION groups in six countries, met to discuss and decide the policies of the League for the next three years.
The congress adopted a new programme and elected its international leadership. There was a greater participation of delegates than previous congresses and the involvement of young people far surpassed that of any previous congress of the League.
The 20-year Roma revolutionary militant Mario Bango was elected as an honorary delegate of the congress and member of its presidium. Mario has been in a Slovak jail for nearly two years, awaiting trial for defending himself and his family from a fascist attack, in which the attacker later died from his injuries. The congress - committed to the principle that "self-defence is no offence" - pledged itself to renew campaigning for Marioâs release.
The congress began its business by discussing the enormous amount of activity the Leagueâs sections and REVOLUTION groups had undertaken during the many months of the anti-war movement. It registered the gains in experience and training in mass agitation we had gained as well as the significant number of new members who have joined and are joining our ranks. We discussed the consequences of the US-UK victory in Iraq, the sharpening of inter-imperialist conflicts, the effects on the world economy and what all these developments mean for the period ahead.
The conclusions delegates reached were that the post-1989 globalisation phase of imperialism has entered into its first crisis. The overall trend in the coming years will be towards stagnation, rather than a return to the "boom" of 1993- 2000. Instead of a period that generated illusions in a "new paradigm" of limitless growth, capitalism and imperialism will be seen as not only brutal and oppressive but as failing the basic material needs of humanity.
US victory in Iraq means that the economic and political offensive of imperialism will continue unabated both in terms of the drive to assert Washingtonâs world hegemony but also via the imposition of neo-liberal policies by IMF, the World Bank and WTO.
This will mean continuing brutal threats and unilateral attacks on countries which defy Washington. Syria, Iran, North Korea head the list. Palestine is marked for a nakedly pro-Zionist "settlement". There will be greater interference in countries like Colombia and Philippines, in support of "antiterrorist" campaigns waged by regimes dependent on Washington. None of this will stabilise the world in the short term. Quite the reverse.
Congress discussed the sudden sharpening of inter-imperialist tensions - between the dominant powers of the European Union and the "Anglo-Saxons". Despite the enormous military preponderance of the USA there will be a growing trend over the coming years and decades for "coalitions of the unwilling" to form ö those unwilling to submit to US dictates.
Most importantly we discussed the massive growth of working class and popular resistance to corporate globalisation and "the war on terrorism" - right around the globe, in imperialist and semi-colonial countries alike. Congress characterised the demonstrations of 15 February as world historic, because of their gigantic size and because a very new movement called and organised them, via new bodies like social forums, using the new electronic media.
We discussed also the vanguard role played by youth in all these mass mobilisations. This was in part due to the continued the crisis of leadership within the labour movement, whereby the official reformist parties and union federations made up the rearguard of the movement even where they supported it. This leadership crisis was revealed in all its sharpness when the war actually broke out. The new movement could put millions on the street but it could not summon millions out of the workplaces. Here the union bureaucracies proved an insuperable obstacle, in the short term at least.
The US AFL-CIO and the British TUC had been pressurised into criticism of Bush and Blair and nominal support for antiwar mobilisations. This alone was some achievement. But once the bugles called to battle, true to their nature the union leaders, with few exceptions, rallied to the flag. Even those who continued to call for peace, like the Italian CGIL did little or nothing to translate the mass protests into direct action to obstruct the war effort, let alone bring down the warmongerâs governments. This points to a major task facing us all - revolutionising, democratising the trade unions and bringing millions of new, radical young workers into them.
The congress decided that economic stagnation and crisis, imperialist aggression, mass mobilisations against it all indicate a period ahead, which will last for years if not decades, that will be marked by wars, acute political crises, revolutionary upheavals. This will be accompanied by a chronic crisis of leadership within the working class movement. In short what Trotsky called a pre-revolutionary period. The aim of revolutionaries is to take major steps to solve this crisis of leadership - to build new mass parties and an International dedicated to the social revolution on a global scale.
The congress debated in considerable depth, how to fight for this new international leadership in the context of the continued growth of the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements. As the name of the LRCI indicates we have for twenty years held the view that a new International was needed. The four historic working class Internationals each contributed massively to our movement but eventually collapsed or degenerated.
The political currents originating in their breakdowns still exist today - anarchism, social democracy, Stalinism, "Trotskyism". But no revolutionary International worthy of the name has existed since the collapse and fragmentation of the Fourth International in 1951-53.
For fifty years all attempts to "rebuild", "reconstruct" or "refound" the FI failed because they did not start from a re-elaboration of a new programme based on Trotskyâs Transitional Programme nor from a serious attempt to create an international democratic centralist organisation.
The objective conditions unfavourable to this was the division of the planet into three worlds or camps and the workers and progressive movement too. The prestige of Stalinism and Social Democracy, their bureaucratic grip on parties and unions alike, isolated the small revolutionary vanguard. Pressures to adapt to reformism or self-imposed sectarian isolation, all took their toll.
It all ended in the downfall of Stalinism in 1989-91 and the triumph of neo-liberalism in the 1990s. A difficult few years ensued in the 1990s in which Marxism, communism, the working class, militant unionism, the very idea of mass politics on the street, were all proclaimed as dead as the dinosaurs. In three years it is all this post-modernist defeatist nonsense that is well and truly defunct. A whole new political cycle has emerged in which enormous possibilities and responsibilities face us.
The LRCI fought for twenty years around the slogan of the necessity of a new International. At this congress we reaffirmed this - in its time - courageous step forward and made it totally unambiguous. The congress passed a resolution which stated, "We include in our programme the slogan: forward to the creation of the Fifth International, a new world party of socialist revolution."
We agreed that this slogan is not directed exclusively - indeed not primarily - to those small propaganda groups like ourselves, claiming to be Trotskyists. Many of them - have shown total sectarian disdain for the anti-capitalist and anti-war movement. Sunk in de facto national isolation, they have long abandoned attempts to build a new International. Others claim the time is not ripe for founding a new International.
Most of them are a living affront to the method of Trotsky and his relentless struggle for a working class International, even in the most adverse conditions. They may have preserved Trotskyâs bare words, but they have long abandoned his living spirit. That spirit is to be found amongst the millions rising up against imperialism today- most of whom have scarcely heard of Trotsky. The task for us is to fuse Trotskyâs programmatic heritage with these new forces.
Thus we make the call for a new, Fifth International to the militant youth and workers which assembled in the European, Asian, South American and middle eastern social forums, to the trade unions and anti-capitalist initiatives that have linked up in antiwar actions around the world. We make the call too to those mass working class parties that - thanks to pressure from their rank and file - have taken to the streets against neo-liberalism, capital and war.
Indeed by continuing, extending and deepening these movementsâ international coordinated actions with a free and open debate about what kind of "new world" is necessary, how to achieve it, we will be able to move on to an even higher level, to the foundation of the Fifth International.
To signal this renewed commitment for fighting for the International in the months and years ahead the LRCI changed its name to League for the Fifth International.
The congress devoted the largest amount of its resources to adopting a new programme. We had published the draft sixth months ago and our sections had discussed and produced suggested changes and developments to this. There was scarce any disagreement that the draft itself was a good one which only needed development in certain areas, albeit important ones. In particular sections in the draft on anarchism and islamism were considered inadequate. The sections on women and racism were considered too "flat" and uninspiring, not reflection enough the experience and anger of those who suffered oppression and fought back against it.
Commissions and subcommissions of delegates and REVOLUTION observers set to work on these and substantial work was done on the sections metioned above, as well as on the section on the crisis of leadership in the workers movement, the trade unions.
Lastly the final section of the programme on the International was substantially developed. The congress voted overwhelmingly for the draft as amended. Our purpose with this new programme is to take it into the debates and actions of the coming months and years - from anti-G8 protests in Evian this June to the European Social Forum in November in Paris, looking both for individuals and whole organisations who share our fundamental vision and will combine forces with us.
Another very lively debate took place around the adoption of a resolution on the revolutionary youth movement and its relations to a revolutionary party and International. Everyone accepted the view of Lenin and Trotsky that the youth organisation must be organisationally independent from the party, i.e. must have its own conferences, elect its own leadership, not subject to constant interference and what the Communist International called "tutelage".
The issue under discussion was whether a youth organisation should put formally put itself under the leadership of a revolutionary party, formally affiliate to it, accept its discipline and if so how this avoided becoming precisely the tutelage Lenin criticised. No one disagreed that the full norms of workers democracy must flourish in the youth movement, majority decisions being followed, leaderships elected, etc. The majority agreed that once a revolutionary party emerged the youth movement, like the revolutionary wing of the union would choose to accept its leadership- not uncritically, not in a totalitarian fashion, not irrevocably but freely as part of the revolutionary movement.
Indeed in the present conditions where there is a massive uprising of youth against capitalism and imperialism it is possible to build a mass revolutionary youth movement more rapidly than it is probable that a mass revolutionary party will emerge. Thus- as was the case in the years 1914- 1920- an international revolutionary youth movement may play an independent political role, even opening the way for new parties and an International.
Another debate raged over the position the LRCI adopted at its fifth congress in 2002 to call for the planned phasing out of all nuclear power stations and facilities. This time, by a substantial majority the congress reversed its position and withdrew this demand from our programme.
The congress naturally discussed perspectives for the Leagueâs work over the coming years. We agreed to continue to put major resources into helping REVOLUTION to become an even broader international organisation. Already there are groups in a number of countries where the LFI has no section. We want to encourage all the groups to adopt a common platform - already adopted by the Ukrainian and British REVOLUTIONS - to create a permanent international liaison and, in the not too distant future, a conference and leadership body. Step towards this will hopefully take place at this year's international summer school.
The League for the Fifth International will also continue to intervene in the anti-capitalist movement and mobilisations against the US and UK "colonisation" of the oil rich, strategic regions of the Middle East as well as with struggles in Latin America (Colombia, Argentina), Palestine, etc.
Lastly the LFI elected a new international executive body, that will meet three times a year. The general view of delegates was that this was a really excellent congress. Young comrades, REVO observers - who had spoken frequently and participated in the commissions, in drafting proposals etc. - said it was a brilliant experience. Older comrades who had attended all the congresses were unanimous that it was "the best congress we have ever had". It was a living and exciting experience of internationalism, which will bear fruit in the years ahead.