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INTERNATIONAL
EDITION OF THE THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE
COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
FOURTH
ENGLISH - LANGUAGE INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE Number 17
Editorial Notes Nepoch as that through wish it has been passiny epoch as that through which it has been passing now for nearly half a century. The history being made is that of the end of capitalist domination and the establishment, throughout the whole world, of Socialism. The triumph in previous centuries of the bourgeoisie affected only a few countries; benefited only a few million men. Today, three thousand million human beings, amongst them the most disinherited of the disinherited, are in process of constructing a world where they will no longer be mere objects of a previleged minority.
The death pangs of capitalism and the growth of Socialism are both taking forms that are in many extraordinary. economically advanced countries-those usually considered "ripest" for Socialism-are showing, contrary to all estimates, the maximum resistance to revolutionary transformation; since the end of the second world war this has even had the appearance, albeit spurious, of a renovation of capitalism. The Soviet Union, and the other countries of the same order, have experienced as a result of the scars of the past, political regimes which sometimes have aspects as odious as those of capitalist countries, and which the new order has not succeeded in eliminating. As for those countries where capitalism was introduced by external means, in the form of imperialism which built up the level of misery and aggravated backwardness, contrary to being a progressive factor, such countries are now endeavouring to cross in a few leaps the gap which it has taken the hitherto most materially and culturally advanced countries centuries to traverse.
In this world of revolutionary transformation the most extraordinary contradictions are affecting the conscious direction of humanity. the workers' movement has had its combative bodies
Up to the present, vicissitudes have certainly not been lacking. revolutionary era started in October 1917 under a leadership of calibre and with a revolutionary party the like of which history had never known. lessons of the formation of such a vanguard, one might have thought, would permit the accelerated
October - December 1963 formation of a world revolutionary vanguard. The Bolsheviks themselves were engaged in this enterprise, sowing fear throughout the capitalist world. What became of it? The Bolshevik party was crushed and the States from which capitalism had been eliminated were led by a bureaucracy which suffocated revolutionary initiative. The traditional workers' parties, especially in the economically advanced capitalist countries are immersed in a reformism impervious to the gigantic events which human history has witnessed. In the colonial countries, the leaders have been able to hurry matters along, but among the difficulties that they have had to solve is that of the creation of a vanguard revolutionary party.
This contradiction finds its most grotesque expression at international level. What is left of the Second International gathers together in general indifference the stale politicians who are in every respect the loyal of capitalism. As for the Communist International, served up as a burnt offering by Stalin and his imperialist "allies" during the war, there still occur the conference where the bureaucratic leaderships perform like diplomats defending their particular and contradictory The concept of revolutionary internationalism is the one that suffered most during the period that permitted the rise of Stalinism, and it remains the idea which has made least progress during the years of decomposition of Stalinism. The bureaucratic rule and political control of the Stalin period held down to a great extent the necessary organisation which would assure the political unity of the mass struggle. This unity is now more urgent than ever in a world where every major struggle acquires an international importance, where tension inflamed in any corner of the globe can provoke the most formidable international consequences.
In such conditions where the world revolution is a living fact, where revolutionary Marxism is being confirmed and enriched beyond all expectation, the organisation which is its embodiment, the Fourth International, maintains a numerical weakness in paradoxical contrast to the strength of the ideas which it defends.
Too slowly for our minds, but definitely nonetheless this contradiction is being removed. The international crisis of Stalinism is also an expression of a tendency towards a renewal of revolutionary leadership in the world. But there is nothing automatic about his process of constructing a new leadership, and in essential element of it is still the life of the Fourth International today, of its organised cadres, who have always pursued the tasks initiated by the Bolsheviks and the Communist International. It has continually participated in and identified itself with the mass struggles.
It has above all, shown its democratic structure by the regular holding of Congresses. end of the World War, these have taken place in 1948, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1960, and 1963. cratic confrontation of conflicting opinions on various aspects of the world situation has taken place in our
The Fourth International has certainly known its difficult moments. weigh on the whole world and which everywhere provoke tension and division have certainly not passed us by. Bound up with the upsurge of revoLutionary activity in the world, the last Congress has just surmounted a troublesome division had aflected it for ten years. The significance of this decision is that it will certainly lead to considerable numerical increases, especially in view of the fact that this rapprochement is the fruit of a strict appraisal of current problems in a world so full of revolutionary
It is at one and the same time a common understanding of the powerful movement of hitherto colonial people, and a wish to bind ourselves to these movements, to participate in them, and thus to help render powerful blows to the capitalist system, whilst enriching Marxism on the basis of new experiences of mankind, unforeseen in the classics of Marxism.
There is also a common perspective regarding the lomentous events which are jolting the Worker': lates, parucularly the soviet Union and the Com munist Parties. The Fourth International is rediscovering its basis there, on ground where all the sions or October, traditions perpetuated in the name of Stalinism could not destroy the tradiof Trotskyism.
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Finally there is full confidence in a renéwal of the best revolutionary traditions in that country where the workers' movement was born, a confidence in Socialism and the Workers' International. The emergence after such a period of young people rebelling against the apparatus testifies that this renewal cannot be now far distant.
The reunification of the International Trotskyist movement has been increasingly sought after by all Trotskyists conscious of the eminently revolutionary character of the present age, and aware that old divisions emanated from protracted differences which considerably reduced the possibility of the Fourth International's intervention in events. The obstacles which hampered the road to unification arose from groups essentially incapable of seeing current events in their entirety —an entirety affected by the rise of the movement against Imperialism in the underdeveloped countries and the forces which are shaking the bureaucracies in the workers states. By overwhelming majority the Trotskyist forces of the world today find themselves in agreement at the end of a period of negotiation, and are uniting to act as a single Fourth International, an International more than ever faithful to its past, acting as a World Party and ruled by Democratic Centralism.
This reunification is not just the simple amalgam of people added together from fused organisations This reunification cannot fail to affect all those aware of the strength of the Trotskyist movement in the realm of ideas, and has been brought about precisely because of the divisions which have affected the International. The Fourth International addresses itself precisely to these people in order that they can rejoin its sections and help intensify their activities.
The regroupment and increased cohesion of the World Trotskyist forces are the principal gains of the World Congress of Reunification of the Fourth International, and will find their daily echo amongst the increasing number of militants, bridging the divergences and difficulties and ensuring the transition of the Fourth International, the world organisation of cadres, whose historical validity has been proved, to a position where it will lead the masses to triumph in the World Socialist Revolution.
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