BUILD THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
TENDENCY After the fall of the Berlin wall... THE "DRAFT resolution on the international situation" adopted by the IEC marks a break with previous such documents in the Fourth International. Previously, the FI said that "the current phase of the crisis of capitalism is characterized by a combination of factors which have brought it to the most serious crisis of its history" (introduction to the resolution on the international situation of the 12th World Congress). Previously, it described how: while American imperialist hegemony was a factor contributing to a relative stabilization of the system since the Second World War, Washington's policy is currently becoming a factor contributing to the destabilization of the capitalist order on an international level. A product international situation, 12th World Congress) of the crisis, this destabilization is now in turn accelerating it. (Political resolution on the Previously, the FI voted for an analysis of German imperialism whose basis of social stability had been eroded" and of Japanese imperialism whose "economic miracle is nearing its end". Previously, the FI stated that: the capacity for struggle of the working masses and the social movements remain immense. It is this which underlies the potential for building our organizations: we are not in a period of growing passivity of the working class, whatever temporary retreats there might be" In the three sectors of the world revolution there was thus: a long period of convulsions, of large-scale battles, of pre-revolutionary crises followed by
206 International Marxist Review temporary retreats, and new revolutionary explosions which will provide us with possibilities for building our organizations.
One could provide many such quotes from official FI documents right up until the end of the 1980s. You could include the draft Manifesto produced for the coming 13th World Congress.
But today, the IEC draft marks a sharp break with the analysis of the period in international politics in which we are now required to act. As far as the new draft world resolution is concerned, we are no longer in a period marked by the acceleration of the crisis of imperialism, nor even a period of unstable equilibrium of the relationship of forces between the classes, but a period of retreat, of decline, of being on the defensive.
This degradation in the relationship of forces is illustrated by the imperialist unification of
Germany, the electoral failure of the Sandinista Front and developments in Central America, negotiations in Southern Africa, threats against Cuba, the marginalization of independent socialist alternatives in the first elections in Eastern Europe, the weak levels of activity of the workers' movement in the USA and Japan and its defensive situation in Western Europe.
Revolutionary movements have been put on the defensive on several fronts of the international class struggle.
This paragraph of the IEC's draft text for the 13th WC accurately and synthetically sums up the whole resolution.
We disagree with this analysis.
We think that it is necessary to continue to talk of the acceleration of the imperialist crisis, of a period of revolutionary crises, whatever the local or temporary retreats, of a period of instability, of a strained relationship of forces, with immense possibilities for building the FI through profiting from the current collapse of Stalinism. We reject the idea that we are in a period of retreat, decline, "reduced to a defensive position"
This is the heart of the disagreement. These are stakes of the 13th World Congress. This is why we call on members of the FI to reject the draft IEC resolution and to adopt the general line of this document. It is rare that a debate in our ranks is so clear in terms of the differences in approach to the international situation. I. Does the fall of Stalinism throw Trotskyists onto the defensive?
What is behind the June 1990 majority text's radical break with previous FI documents (or even the draft Manifesto submitted to this World Congress)?
Is the answer simply to be found in the first sentence of the document?
The overthrow of the bureaucratic dictatorships has released a formidable captive potential, obliging critical examination and radical redefinitions on behalf of the international workers' movement. At the same time, this victory has put the relative stability of the imperialist
metropolises into relief and thrown revolutionary currents onto the defensive on several
Does this mean that it is the historic turn of 1989 that changed the evolution
Is it the "overthrow of the bureaucratic dictatorships"... which "throw revo-
Or, as the text also says, does this strike "a blow to the credibility of the socialist project itself", as if "the bankruptcy of Stalinism and social democ-
Should we not rejoice at "the overthrow of the bureaucratic dictatorships"?
It is not as a result of imperialist attack that they are collapsing, it is due to an uprising of the people! It was revolutions "from below" that overthrew the
We would be ready to defend the USSR against imperialism's attacks, just as we would be opposed to a boss who tried to attack a rotten trade union:
because in both cases workers would have been the victims. But when it is the workers themselves who start throwing stones at the rotten trade union,
If we have to "redefine" anything or make "critical examinations", it is surely due to having underestimated the hatred of the people, the workers, the youth, for the hideous nomenklatura system, for the totalitarian, brainwashing, dehumanizing, destructive Stalinist bureaucracy, whose crimes are comparable in their horror to those of the Nazis. The people got rid of the
Ceaucescu's Securitate or Honecker's Stasi in exactly the same way that the
Portuguese people got rid of Salazar's PIDE... and they were right! The Stalinist bureaucracy succeeded in plundering, disorganizing and destroying the gains of the collectivization of the means of production and planning. The collapse of this criminal, parasitic caste that is the Stalinist bureaucracy in
Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest and Moscow proves that there can be no progress, no "overtaking" of capitalism, by a bureaucratic command economy. Despite the collectivization of the means of production, despite the principle of "planning", the archaic, conservative and terrorist bureaucracy succeeded in leading the Soviet economy into bankruptcy. Without democra-
¿y, state control does not constitute social progress in relation to capitalism.
When the proletariat loses democracy it loses nearly everything else, including its social conquests, the gains of its own revolution. The proletariat is the
¿lass with the most interest in the broadest democracy: without it it can be a orce for manoeuvre, but never a decision-making force. Democracy is essential for the working class to be able to win and exercise power. In the fronts of the world revolution.
of the world relationship of forces?
lutionary currents onto the defensive"?
racy"... forced us, the FI, into "radical redefinitions"...?
odious Stalinist apparatuses!
we will throw stones alongside them.
After the fall of the Berlin wall 207
208 International Marxist Review USSR, as elsewhere. This proves that the "bureaucratic dictatorships" in no way formed part of "our camp", that they were not in any sense an "anticapitalist" element in the relationship of forces, that it was not them, nor their maintenance, that could ease the "crisis of imperialism" As bureaucratic dictatorships, they suffocated and murdered the vanguards of their own peoples, and day after day they ruined the socialized economies. They served as a foil and a propaganda argument for imperialism, against the very idea of socialism, and as a parapet for the anti-imperialist movements, preventing any searching for a real socialist way forward. There was not, and there is not, any chance of defending socialism as long as it is identified with the defence of the pseudo "socialist camp" and with the perception that the collapse of the bureaucratic dictatorships "throws us onto the defensive" If, rather than rejoicing at the collapse of the Stalinist bureaucracy, we seem rather to repent its passing because the relationship of forces would have been better, and appear to perceive these events as the beginning of a long period of crossing the desert "on the defensive", then the FI will have made a big mistake.
Internationally, the decline of Stalinism is a big victory for the workers. While the class collaboration of Gorbachev is deepening, the ability of the Soviet bureaucracy to impose this on the international workers' movement is greatly weakened. A key counter-revolutionary force, a key prop of the imperialist world order, has been kicked away by the workers of Eastern Europe and the USSR. For us, who have from the beginning stood up and worked against Stalinism, that horrible caricature of socialism, it is not the "credibility of the socialist project" which is at stake.
For us, socialism and communism are "new ideas" because they have never been carried out!
We refuse to internalize the overthrow of the bureaucratic dictatorships as if, somehow, we were linked to them. It is not the working class, nor the workers' movement which is in question: it is the murderers of the workers' movement that have been thrown out. Some have claimed that Trotsky "exaggerated" in denouncing the "crimes of Stalin" — no! He was prophetically telling the truth... today confirmed by the peoples in movement.
Gorbachev announced in summer 1989 that German unification would not happen "in 100 years!". Bush did not contradict him. It is the people of the GDR who pushed things forward and destroyed the Berlin Wall. We rejoiced without reservations. It is a step forward for all humanity, and most of all for the workers: because the wall was a disgrace, a permanent argument against
After the fall of the Berlin wall 209 Honecker-style socialism. Socialism will never be built anywhere by shutting people in behind walls, by limiting democratic rights. There is no socialism possible without democracy, no planning without a considerable expansion of democratic freedoms. This is our programme: and the reasons to defend it, the hope of gaining a hearing, are greater today than before -contrary to what is said by the IEC resolution.
Thus, there are three central ideas put forward in the majority text:
1) the consequences of the fall of the bureaucracies are disastrous for revolutionaries, for the workers' movement, and for the third world;
2) the bankruptcy of Stalinism discredits the very idea of socialism;
3) imperialism has forced the bureaucracy to retreat, which is a victory for it.
To these we oppose the following three ideas:
1) The fall of the bureaucratic dictatorships is a positive step for every worker. It was a democratic, revolutionary movement of the people, from below, that toppled the Stalinists. Behind all this was Berlin 1953, Warsaw/ Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, and... ten million workers in Solidarnosc in 1980. There were cruel defeats: notably for Solidarnose in 1981 and 1989, and then, in turn, its victors were ousted, a new cycled opened. There were incomplete victories: in Rumania and Bulgaria. There are temporary mystifications in Czechoslovakia or Hungary. But everywhere there are groundswells, a repoliticization, a new experience beginning that is the source of new-found hope. We encourage this movement to go as far as possible, to destroy the nomenklatura in the USSR as elsewhere. It is necessary to eradicate Stalinism and to develop democracy as far as possible among workers the world over. The stronger and more popular the democratic demands and the denunciations of privilege, the more real socialism will come back on the agenda.
Obviously this does not correspond to the pre-established schemas of political revolution: far from coming out intact, as if the enthusiasm of October 1917 could be conserved despite the glacier of Stalinism, far from having an ideal revolutionary vision, the people are groping for a way forward, discovering, politicizing, experimenting (while most of the anti-Stalinist, socialist cadres had been decimated in the preceding decades). Apparently there are 136 parties in Georgia: this confused, agitated mass where conservative, reactionary and democratic forces meet is positive in comparison with yesterday's deathly silence. Things are the same in Prague, Bucharest, Leningrad, Warsaw: political life is beginning again, ideas are being reborn and this is a better context in which the ideas of democratic socialism can be traced out
against the dictatorship of capital, and against the dictatorship of the
2) The example of these revolutions in the East can only be stimulating in
No more Stasi in Dresden or Leipzig? — No more political police in Swit-
Against the bureaucrats' riches? — Against the capitalists' privileges!
Down with the Stalinists in Moscow? - Down with those Stalinism the
And have we not seen for example in Africa national oppositions to the singe party and the demand for multi-partyism? Instead of appearing to dread such a demand reaching Cuba, we should rejoice that the problem is at last being posed there. There is a global advance of democratic demands, and this is one of the most positive results of the revolutions in the East.
It is the unification of hopes which is now a possibility and not the collapse of deception. Finally socialism is no longer mortgaged to Stalinism!
3) Imperialism is boasting, blowing its trumpet. But all this noise cannot hide its profound fear: the capitalists in no position to "buy up" the collectivized economies of these countries; the much invoked and vaunted "market"
does not live off words; the economic chaos caused by the anarchy of new
"liberal" rules adds to the disorder of the command economy. All this means that the retreat of the bureaucracy is not profiting imperialism much. Bush is repeatedly coming to Gorbachev's aid as he looks for support from capitalism: but a situation of civil war is being created in the USSR. Despite the speeches and promises of the bureaucracies, presenting themselves as restor-
This is also why the relationship of forces has not been reversed, and why the labour movement has not retreated onto the defensive. As the 1985 World
Congress resolution said, 'the decisive struggles are before us, not behind us
... resolving the crisis is impossible without resolving the crisis of revolu-
II. The workers of the USSR vs. the USSR of Gorbachev
So over the last three years we have had disagreements over five questions
1) The majority text at the USec analyzed Gorbachev's policy as an attempt to "de-bureaucratize thé bureaucracy". For it, there was no question of capitalist restoration, nor of political revolution, but rather it was a new way for
210 International Marxist Review bureaucracy.
the medium term for Western workers.
zerland or Paris!
world over!
ers of capitalism, restoration is not happening.
tionary leadership"
related to the evolution of the situation in the USSR:
ABBAT: 1
Democracy in the East? — Democracy in the West!
the bureaucracy to prolong its existence and defend its caste position and
We opposed this idea from the start, emphasizing that the fundamental alternatives were capitalist restoration or political revolution. We did not believe that the bureaucracy were capable of following a new policy independent of imperialism for any period of time, any more than they were capable of meeting the challenge of the rising popular workers' and national
In our view there was a class polarization between two camps — imperialism and the bureaucracy on one side, the working class on the other. Not a
"triangular" struggle between imperialism, the bureaucracy and the working
It seems to us that events over the last three years have clarified the discussion in favour of our position: increasingly the bureaucracy, pushed into a corner, needs the aid of imperialism, is negotiating with it, and in return is opting for market restoration. At the same time oppositions are growing among the workers, the youth, and the oppressed peoples, all rejecting the
2) At the start of this debate, the majority position seemed to give some critical support to Gorbachev's policy. Sometimes, it was analyzed in terms of a
"political project" initiated by the bureaucracy, sometimes it was recognized ity were relatively indulgent towards glasnost and perestroika: in retrospect, our position was closer to the mark, refusing any support for glasnost dictated from above and restorationist perestroika. Gorbachev did not have a coherent policy, but a succession of turns, of zigzags, between the bureaucracy on the one side and fear of the mass movement on the other. He tried to ban strikes, to give himself absolute powers, and it was a sign of retreat when he made democratic concessions that were always designed to suit sectors of the nomenklatura and counterposed to the self-determination of the masses.
In addition, the USSR is less and less "the USSR of Gorbachev" and more and more the workers opposing Gorbachev, the bureaucracy and the ...
3) From the start, we have had a different attitude to what was happening in the CPSU from what was happening in the mass movement. To begin with, the comrades who supported the majority position along with Verla regarded developments inside the CPSU as the priority, even estimating that Gorbachev would defend the "Party" on which relied for support until the very end.
But this party was so discredited that even Gorbachev had to dissociate himprivileges.
oppositions.
class.
system in its entirety.
"USSR."
as the product of a movement "from below"
After the fall of the Berlin wall 211
'. But, at the beginning, the major-
self from it, and his power was under attack from all sides.
On the other hand we regarded the development of mass movements independent of the party apparatus as the priority: trade unions, miners'
During three years of discussion, there have been positive developments for the workers in the relationship of forces here as well, against the bureaucracy's single, despotic party. The strike movements, the bigger and bigger popular demonstrations, are lined up against the CPSU and Gorbachev. A repoliticization is taking place, albeit slowly because the destruction wrought by the bureaucracy is profound. Against conservatives, populists and restorationist liberals, left currents are slowly becoming active and the weight of the
4) At the start of the discussion, in the context of the movements of the oppressed nations, we said: we should not only say "right to self- determination" but also "independence" for all the oppressed nations of the
USSR. The USSR should, must, explode, so that new relations can be established between free peoples on the basis of equality. But the majority comrades were literally hostile to this policy, taking a long time to test things out, and to say that oppressed peoples could have a "right of veto"
reignty" and, in "certain exceptional cases" (?!), their independence. This excessive prudence was swept away by the intensification of national demands, and the independence struggle of more or less all of the peoples
5) We also disagreed about the importance of indicating our desire to build the FI in the USSR and acting accordingly. The majority say that they are worried about too much haste and adventurism. OK, but at the moment the main danger is being too late and waiting around too long, because a radicalization is taking place, groups are being set up by the dozen, Trotsky's books are being reprinted and he is soon to be rehabilitated. We cannot be content with facilitating exchanges between centrist currents. While these are certainly interesting, we need to make efforts to recruit. This is possible in the current political situation, which is an incredible one coming after decades of
We estimate that these five disagreements on the USSR also reflect our disagreement on the relationship of forces on an international level.
The bureaucratic dictatorships did not fall because of an attack by capitalism, or even because of the effects of capitalism's so-called superiority. It came decisively from inside these systems, because of the decay of their ruling castes and the peoples' uprisings. It is wrong to explain things simply
212 International Marxist Review committees, new parties, and so on.
working class is beginning to be felt.
bureaucratically dominated by "Great Russia"
terror.
strike
', have "sove-
After the fall of the Berlin wall 213 through the consequences of the last 15 years of capitalist crisis, which supposedly brought the East European economies "to their knees" as if, before that, Stalin's USSR in the 1930s and 1950s was any different! The bankruptcy and the horror of the system originates in the 1930s, and what's been happening in recent years is its growing rejection by the peoples.
We could add a sixth divergence around the appreciation of Gorbachev's project: in relation to his foreign policy. At the beginning, the majority thought that they could detect some "positive aspects" in this foreign policy: there are none. What it confirms is a prolonged subordination to imperialism, from Yalta to Malta. This has been confirmed by the conditions of German unification and the Gulf war. III. Defence of a united and socialist Germany
But the supporters of the IEC resolution tell us that the imperialist unification of Germany is a new Anschluss which has destroyed the workers' state in the GDR and strengthened one of the main imperialist powers. Is this not a sign of the deterioration of the relationship of forces that has thrown revolutionaries onto the defensive?
Comrades who see only defeat in Germany make a methodological error — the same one that Trotsky denounced when he refused to support the forcible incorporation of Finland or Poland into the USSR. We have to judge historic events, not on the number of square miles incorporated into the "socialist bloc", but on the basis of their impact on the relationship of class forces internationally, and in the first place the consciousness of the world working class. From this optic, events like Hungary 1956 and Tiananmen Square, while they (temporarily) thwarted any potential challenge to the bureaucratic order, were giant defeats for socialism and its prestige internationally. Equally, the fact that the 1989 events led not to a bureaucratically-imposed bloodbath, but to the fall of the Berlin Wall, is not a defeat but a victory — our victory, a victory for our class. Comrades have to ask not what this means in the short term, where German imperialism has won a definite victory, but what it means historically, for the overall dynamic of events. Certainly in this case German imperialism, aided by Gorbachev moreover (contrary to the prediction made in the majority resolution), appears to have scored an important point. But does it really want to go so far and so quickly, and does it not have reasons to fear the effects of this rapid turnaround? Exactly how should we interpret it? As a total victory, a crushing of the German working class, a rout of the ex-GDR section of the German people? Or as the conclusion of a situation where the people were stifled, where the divi-
sion of the German working class was imposed by imperialism and Stalinism
Stalin and Roosevelt feared the possibility of the German working class reawakening at the end of the Second World War. They crushed it under a carpet of bombs at the same time as the Nazis, then occupied, dominated and divided the country, blaming the "entire German people" for Hitler's crimes.
A bureaucratically-deformed, rump workers' state was imposed by the Red
Army. And the apparatus of Ulbrecht and Honecker never rooted itself in the
The leadership of the FI committed a mistake, the worst in recent times, on this crucial question for world politics. After having condemned the division of Germany for the last 40 years (rightly, and in documents that were largely correct), in autumn 1989, just at the very moment when the people of the
GDR rose up, the USec first denied the existence of a desire for German unification, and then opposed it... to the defence of the GDR "workers' state"
On October 22 Inprecor saw nothing but "restorationists" and "US agents"
supporting unification! The day after the fall of the Berlin Wall the USec again refused to see the torrent that was going to burst out in favour of unification. We tried to change the International's mind, but nobody listened.
The aspiration for German unification was, for us, a just one. Not only were we wrong to oppose it, but we should have taken it up at the same time as social demands that were already being raised by the masses in the East against the bureaucrats. Down with Honecker! Down with Krenz! Down with Modrow! Kick out all the Stalinists! No to privileges, down with the
Stasi, out with the armies of occupation! Public services that are free as in the
East, of the same quality as in the West! etc (see the text on Europe by the tendency in IDB 3). We need to say "A united socialist Germany"
Through putting ourselves in such a bad position, we were marginalized - the vanguard contributed to its own ruin! But, for all that, has the German workers' movement suffered a real defeat? It didn't know how to profit from this revolution in order to impose its solutions and defend its gains: but German capitalism is still paying the price of the many promises they had to make. The united German working class is the most powerful in Europe, and the dead weight of the odious Stalinist regime is gone. Social demands are rapidly giving way to strikes and demonstrations against the conservatives.
The national railworkers' strike — the first since 1953! — is symbolic.
It is wrong to paint an apocalyptic picture of a new Anschluss. On the contrary, we are in a completely different relationship of forces from that of the
214 International Marxist Review at the end of the Second World War?
socialist Germany against a united Germany".
masses — other than by terror, and by building the Wall.
1 T F be W tr th st in is ", not "A m di th bo ha th
1930s, a much more favourable one for the workers of Germany and Europe.
The comparison with the Anschluss is an enormous historical error.
Again, it is wrong to see the situation through the eyes of the VSP, of German left groups, and unfortunately of some of our comrades, who think that the best way forward is to write "Never again Germany" and "No to the
Fourth Reich". This is most certainly a good way to put yourself "on the
The deployment of the US armada in the Gulf following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait has evidently contributed to the discussion on "the inter-
At the time of writing, no-one can tell what the outcome of this conflict will
But is this a show of strength by an all-powerful imperialism, operating
Or is it a terrible military adventure by an imperialism in economic decline, trying to safeguard its domination over a world whose equilibrium is being
We are not nostalgic for a world where Stalinist dictators supposedly tied the hands of imperialism! In reality, the Stalinists only supported peoples in struggle the better to control them, and were then eager to negotiate with imperialism over their heads. In this way they played an active role in the
The fact that Gorbachev is supporting Bush in the Gulf is nothing new, nor is it an element of a general deterioration in the relationship of forces for the peoples. It is not the first time since the Stalin-Hitler Pact that Stalinist diplomacy has acted in this way. Gorbachev betrayed the Sandinistas, just as he did the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. And he totally accepted
(Contrary to the illusions in the IEC resolution that imprudently stated that
*the USSR cannot accept, for internal and geopolitical reasons, a united Germany being a member of NATO, any more than the questioning of the 1945
The more USSR slides further towards complete crisis, the less means it has to play a full role in defending the world order established at Yalta.
Japan and the Germany were able to rebuild themselves more rapidly than the victors due to the fact that they had no military responsibilities.
Thus it rests with the USA, helped by Europe, to play the policeman, arms defensive"
IV. The Gulf national situation".
be: appeasement, deadlock or confrontation.
with a "free hand" following Stalinism's collapse?
challenged?
that the united Germany belong to NATO.
borders".)
After the fall of the Berlin wall 215 world order constructed at Yalta, Potsdam and Tehran.
216 International Marxist Review salesman, guardian of oil... and emirs. But the USA are also bankrupt (state payments suspended, a debt double that of the third world, and internal insolvency with tens of millions below the poverty line...) and cannot cope with the demands of the South (the debt), those of the East (investment to restore the market) and inter-imperialist competition (EEC and Japan) all at the same time.
(The IEC majority state that "the main restorationist force in the East is foreign capital". Quite apart from the fact that this leaves out the role of the bureaucracy (a rather important omission!), it also ignores the fact that "foreign capital" has not got the means to solve its own crises!)
Would appeasement in the Gulf be a success for Bush, after having spent $20 billion and mobilized an armada of 200,000 men in the middle of a recession? The answer is "no"
Could the US economy, or the capitalist economy in general, sustain a long-term campaign in the Gulf?
A confrontation is the most "logical" solution, but also the most dangerous, risking a reversal of world opinion against Washington.
The road that Bush's men will choose will not be wide open for a triumphant imperialism.
Revolutionaries are in tune with a powerful anti-war and anti-imperialist sentiments throughout the world — as can be seen in the USA, Europe and, of course, among the Arab peoples. V. Retreats and defensive struggles in every sector?
This is why we reject the negative picture that the majority text paints of the international situation, seeing nothing but retreat in the relationship of forces.
It is not that have some inverse euphoric view — a revolutionary picture seen through rose-tinted spectacles.
We have a contrasted analysis of the relationship of forces, even if this is placed in a framework opposed to the defeatism of the majority resolution. Between sharp turns in the situation, there are shorter or longer periods of retreat and maturation caused by the economic crisis, which worsens without exploding, to the traditional leaderships' abilities to maintain order and to the lack of an alternative revolutionary leadership.
But the important thing is to understand the underlying trends at work: they are on the rise. Behind local and ephemeral counter-examples, it is necessary to grasp what is essential.
Thus, in the three sectors of the world revolution:
1) The leitmotive of the resolution is to insist that everywhere "the imperi-
alist bourgeoisies have succeeded in going onto the offensive"
rywhere there is "disarray in sectors of the working class", "a deterioration in the relationship of forces for the unions", "retreats imposed on the working
But why not note the fact that the bourgeoisie has had to call on the social- democratic leaderships to contain the demands of the workers in many cases, particularly in Europe? This is hardly a symptom of a reactionary period.
Certainly, after a long crisis the capitalists have been able to restore their profit margins to a higher level but they have not inflicted decisive defeats on the workers. They have not been able to smash the workers' movement anywhere, nor to take back the social gains that they had to concede in the aftermath of the war. They have struck some blows, increased unemployment, divisions between workers, but — with the notable exception of Britain — they have had to drop their most way-out free market projects and the dismantling of the public sector. Since the middle of the 1980s we have seen a new growth in strikes and youth movements in a number of European countries. While the economic crisis was the occasion for the bosses to try to
No-one can be happy just to say "the bourgeoisie has the initiative" — the relationship of forces is very unstable, neither class has definitively won against the other and mass social explosions around social and democratic demands are a real possibility in the current situation in the advanced capital-
In France, twice in the space of four years, hundreds of thousands of young people — a layer extremely sensitive to the social crisis — demonstrated in force, to the surprise of supporters of the majority. In Italy, the Spanish state,
Belgium, ex-West Germany and Switzerland, mass movements have contra-
2) The IEC text describes "the new spiral of under-development" in the third world and goes through a long list of defeats: decomposition of the workers' movement in Peru and Bolivia; the feeble reaction to US intervention in Panama; the defeat of the Salvadoran revolution of 1980-81, the Grenadan defeat of 1983, the "serious defeat of the Guatemalan revolution" in
1982, the Sandinistas' electoral defeat, threats against Cuba, the African conconflicts"; and finally emphasizes the rise of "reactionary religious populism classes in the imperialist centres"
introduced some measures of "flexibility", create a "dual society", and social and democratic demands.
ist countries.
dicted the IEC's vision of capitalism's "relative stability".
tinent "sinking into despair"
or desperate chauvinism.
After the fall of the Berlin wall 217
', and that eve-
', and so on.
', cut back on civil rights, widened
', they ran up against deepgoing egalitarian aspirations
', the "Indian sub-continent ravaged by ethnic
218 International Marxist Review
But, without denying the elements put forward by the IEC text, on the other side of the scales we could add the fall of numerous dictators — in the Philippines, Haiti, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay; the steps forward in the struggle against apartheid made by the black people of South Africa (despite the ANC's negotiations); the development of the intifada; the uprisings in Africa against one party systems and in favour of pluralism (a positive echo from Eastern Europe); the electoral advances of the left in numerous Latin American countries (and the fact that the leader of the PT got 31 million votes in Brazil); the rise of mass movements in the Arab countries, particularly Algeria (this cannot be reduced to the rise of the FIS); the exceptional and prolonged workers' struggles in South Korea; the multiplication of oppositions and campaigns against the burden of the third world debt....
What we can note is that imperialism could face a people's uprising somewhere in the world at any moment, and that history is accelerating.
The stronghold of the richest capitalist states cannot subjugate four-fifths of the planet solely by military repression and economic plunder. Social explosions and popular uprisings are multiplying. But we cannot simply rely on an intensification of class struggles: they do not follow the neat, preordained path of schemas, as the ultra-lefts dream. Vanguards knowing how to put flesh onto an up-to-date revolutionary programme do not arise spontaneously — it is necessary to work, work and work again so that the Fourth International's proposals and organizations establish themselves.
But to do this it is no good despairing of certain ultra-left positions that existed in our ranks, only to retreat into defensive and remote positions. We need to make a realistic assessment of a world situation in which there are greater possibilities than ever for building the FI. VI. Are all socialist projects thrown into doubt?
The Introduction to the IEC resolution states:
The impasse of reformist policies in the capitalist countries and the bankruptcy of the bureaucratic system result in doubt being caste on any socialist project.
This is a terrible internalization of the propaganda that we are faced with — it is not our fault, nor because the masses are not mobilizing, but because of the (reformist and bureaucratic) "leaderships"! According to the IEC majority, this leads to any socialist projects being thrown into doubt. Presumably including our own. This goes along with other despairing phrases: "we have not finished paying the price for Stalinism. Memory and hope must be rebuilt". This is not an
attempt at scientific analysis or a close examination of the relationship of forces: it is a way of giving a particular "tone" to the document, a sort of
So allow us to say, perhaps naively, that "we" do not have to pay the price for the fall of Stalinism, for bureaucratic bankruptcy. We are not in any way responsible — on the contrary, we helped bring it about. We are unequivocally with the masses against the bureaucratic apparatuses, with no nostalgia and no regrets, because for us the collapse of these bureaucracies is a victory.
Moreover, it is by adding our voices to the cheers of the masses who opposed the Stalinist bureaucracy that we will be heard by them — not by
If somewhere along the line there are attacks on our socialist project — the only one to survive — we need not just to defend it, but also to enrich it. And there is a way to enrich it — that is through deepening our democratic proposals for the transition, by becoming the strongest defenders of democratic rights, in the unions, the political parties (including our own, where there is still plenty to do!), in existing institutions and in proposals for those of the
The bourgeois state must be destroyed because it is undemocratic, because it does not allow the real exercise of power by the people whatever its preten-
We are for a revolution that extends democracy, not limits it. The proletariat needs democracy not only for its struggles or for raising its political consciousness, but also for the conquest and exercise of power. When the proletariat loses democracy it loses nearly everything else. A democratic proletarian programme is what has been most lacking in recent decades in the
We do not support, as some comrades have written, "Fidel Castro's reservations about democratic elections in Nicaragua". Because Fidel Castro's reservations are those of a caudillo who has prevented his people from electing their leaders for the last 30 years. If we have criticisms to make of the
Sandinistas, it is from the opposite point of view: because they haven't been democratic enough! Because they haven't held a single FSLN congress in ten years, because they have not built a mass democratic, revolutionary party, because they did not allow the unions and the mass organizations to function democratically, because they did not build organizations of workers' control and the self-rule of the masses; because they did not adequately fight the social inequalities existing in their "mixed economy". And also because the constitution that they established was not democratic enough (president political purée.
sighs of resignation.
future.
sions to do so.
USSR as elsewhere. It is up to us to push it forward.
After the fall of the Berlin wall 219
220 International Marxist Review elected for six years, no councils of the mass organizations, delegation of powers without control or recallability, etc.). For ten years the FI said almost nothing on these issues. But these are all criticisms that we should have made forcefully at the appropriate time, in order to make our socialist project known concretely. It is not possible on the one hand to refuse to criticize the FSLN and the Cuban leadership and put forward our programme, and on the other to deplore the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas and say that any socialist project is thrown into question.
We embody the only concrete, voluntary and conscious attempt to build a mass democratic, workers', feminist, young, ecologist International. This project is not "thrown into question" — it is because of the social democrats' and Stalinists' failure that is up to us to fight for its existence.
As the Tendency to Build the Fourth International, we have also developed these ideas in our other documents on the USSR, Europe, building sections in every country and on Nicaragua.