LRCI Fifth Congress: turn out to new mass struggles
In late July the LRCI held its 5th World Congress. Forty-nine delegates from nine countries met at a hostel near Deelen, Holland.
One theme dominated the LRCI’s 5th Congress: the growing anti-capitalist movement and the need to put the working class centre stage within it.
The LRCI Congress takes place every three years, so a lot has happened since the last one in 1997:
- Capitalist restoration has progressed further in the former Stalinist countries – but a new generation of young workers has come forward who are not encumbered by memories of Stalinist “communism.
- The stock market crash that took place around the time of the 4th Congress did not translate into a world recession. Instead US imperialism launched a speculative boom – and strengthened its grip on the world economy in the process. This period coincided with the emergence of real technology innovations in the USA that the capitalists claim is the basis for a “long boom”.
- The backlash against neo-liberalism – which had led to mass strikes in several countries in the mid 1990s – has been diverted into the parliamentary arena: in most of Europe there are social-democratic governments. In turn, many of these are bringing mass disillusionment among their traditional working class base.
- The radical youth movements of the mid-1990s have moved spontaneously from the single-issue politics of protest and reform to an “anti-capitalist” agenda.
All of these developments offer new opportunities for revolutionary organisations to grow – and the LRCI recorded significant growth in membership since 1997, with a new section in the Czech Republic, sympathisers in the Ukraine, and both the Swedish and German sections being strengthened through fusions with other left-wing groups.
However, all delegates recognised the need for a more outward orientation to new layers of young people and workers.
We recognised that several of our attempts to build revolutionary unity with left groups trying to break with their opportunist past – notably two splits from Lutte Ouvrier in France and with the Argentine-based Trotskyist Faction/PTS – had not borne fruit.
The big changes in the objective situation also prompted us to re-look at our perspectives and theory. After prolonged pre-congress discussion, and hours of democratic debate in our national conferences and at the Congress, the LRCI decided to make a number of changes of line.
We no longer stick to our characterisation of the 1990s after the fall of Stalinism as a world-historic revolutionary period. We recognised we had overestimated the effect the fall of Stalinism would have in destabilising world capitalism.
Instead we characterise the 1990s as a transition period towards such a new revolutionary period. In 1997 we had seen the early 1990s as a counter-revolutionary phase that would give way to one of mass struggles – and saw in the French general strike of December 1995 the beginnings of this.
But social democracy was able to channel discontent away from mass action, while the economic resilience of the USA allowed it to stave off the recession that we expected to follow the Asian crash.
We got the tempo wrong, but not the direction of development.
We abandoned the theory of the “moribund workers’ state” as a way of understanding the phase in the former stalinist states where capitalism has not been restored but a pro-capitalist government holds the reins of power.
We recognised that in these cases the state apparatus promotes and defends capitalist class interests and capitalist property relations. This means that the designation “bourgeois restorationist state” is the most accurate.
After a debate, the Congress reaffirmed a resolution on the environment from a previous international executive committee.
While generally uncontentious, this involved a change of line on nuclear power. We formerly argued that nuclear power had to be treated like all other energy sources when assessing the issue of plant closure: now we are in favour of the planned global closure of all nuclear plants and their replacement by sustainable energy sources under workers control and inspection.
We reaffirmed our slogan “for a new International” but debated the way forward in building it concretely. We recognised that at the same time as the chances of rescuing significant portions of degenerate centrist forces were declining, new opportunities are opening up as workers and youth look for a way of linking their struggles globally.
While we reject the idea of a “return to the First International” or the rebuilding of reformist parties from scratch, we need to address those who are looking towards these solutions. We need to address the slogan of the new, revolutionary workers’ international to the mass, vibrant forces that are emerging rather than to dyed-in-the wool “Trotskyists” who have proved incapable of breaking their addiction to piecing together fragments of the Fourth International.
The Congress confirmed our orientation to youth work and the building of party-aligned but independent revolutionary youth groups. The success of this orientation could be seen on the floor of Congress: about half the delegates were in their twenties and some were in their teens.
We also discussed the emerging opportunities for revolutionary electoral work as splits to the left of traditional workers parties begin to create left reformist and centrist challenges at the polls. We discussed the lessons of the LSA in Britain, the LO/LCR list in the Frech general election, the Left Party in Sweden and swapped experiences if intervention into these movements.
Numerous sessions were devoted to discussion of trade union work. Delegates who work in car plants, post offices, railways and the public sector – with a combined workplace experience of decades – swapped experiences.
Despite the widely variable conditions, common themes emerged: surviving witch-hunts by employers and the union bureaucracy, keeping alive workplace bulletins, building rank and file opposition to the union leaders, avoiding incorporation into the bureaucratic machine and – through it all – winning new recruits to communist groups in the workplace.
We also decided to place a renewed emphasis on women’s struggles. With the combination of a backlash against feminism and the rightward orientation of most feminist leading-lights it falls to revolutionaries to revive activism on the issue of women’s oppression.
At the centre of the whole debate was how to take forward the anti-capitalism movement that has come together to oppose institutions like the WTO, World Bank and IMF.
This is the first truly international movement for decades and the LRCI has taken a firm stand from the beginning that revolutionaries need to be part of it.
That is why we have built prominent contingents on two Euromarches (Amsterdam, Cologne) and likewise played a prominent role in protests like the Stop the City demonstrations.
Now the LRCI stands well placed to fight for two vital goals: the anti-capitalist movement must turn to the organised working class; the organised workers’ movement should become anti-capitalist.
From London’s J18 protest through the 300,000 strong anti-fascist demos in Austria, through to Mayday protests the world over and now Prague the LRCI has been a prominent part of the movement.
We will not flinch from confronting the dead-end ideas of anarchism, zero-growth environmentalism and NGO-style reformism within that movement.
But we will be part of it and we will fight for revolutionary leadership within it – much to the disgruntlement of the literary superstars and ageing charity gurus who have appointed themselves as its leaders.
This Congress showed what democratic centralism can do in action. Democratic centralism means maximum rights to internal debate, maximum unity in carrying out decisions.
Anarchists, greens, reformists, centrists and Stalinists all in their own way vilify the concept. But our Congress showed that it can work.
