Airmail
Airmail
France.
### Introducing
International Marxist Review We are pleased to be able to recommence the publishing of an English language theoretical and analytical journal of the Fourth International with this issue of International Marxist Review. The appearance of this journal is somewhat overdue. For decades, albeit with some interruptions, our sister magazine in French, Quatrième Internationale, has provided its readers with in-depth articles which have underpinned the public statements and resolutions of the leading bodies of our world movement. In addition it has provided a forum within which the first approximations to such positions have been offered for comment and criticisms. It has debated other tendencies in the workers' movement, and published discussions which have arisen within our own ranks, where these have been of interest to a wider public. Now we offer readers in English a similar opportunity to gain access to these activities and debates.
However, given that there are other excellent English language journals which defend the viewpoint of Marxism, such as the London-based New Left Review, we should perhaps restate the particular role we see our magazine playing. The Fourth International understands very well the fact that we do not today represent the mass revolutionary international which it is our aspiration to build. Even the strongest of our sections are not the powerful revolutionary parties which will be the foundation stones of such an international. We are building ourselves today as the nuclei of such parties and such an international. Our main asset in this task is the programme of revolutionary Marxism, summarising a century and a half of class struggles, victories and defeats. Evidently this programme has to be continually re-evaluated in the light of the experiences both of our own sections and of revolutionary upsurges the world over. As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Fourth International, this re-evaluation, carried out in the light of the internationalist practice of our sections, is a more and more pressing task. Thus International Marxist Review will act as a vehicle for this continuous process of trenchant defence and critical discussion of our fundamental programmatic tenets.
Nowhere has this debate been more fiercely concentrated than around
4 International Marxist Review the theory and practice of permanent revolution. In the opening article of this issue, Ernest Mandel, one of the best known leaders of the Fourth International, has succinctly restated the main tenets of the theory and practice of permanent revolution in the light of the five decades of experience since Leon Trotsky developed his general theory. In his thesis, Mandel amplifies Trotsky's view that the working class in less developed countries must gain national hegemony through carrying out the reconstruction of the nation under its leadership, but that it cannot conquer state power without defending its own class interests. Extending this argument to the workers states, Mandel asserts that the process of permanent revolution continues after the victorious socialist revolution and that workers should not hold back this process in order to wait for further victorious struggles in other countries. The theory is also expanded to deal with the advent of nuclear weapons and the new imperatives posed by the modern women's liberation movement. Finally Mandel deals with what permanent revolution is not in an attempt to shift the mountainous distortions which have been heaped on the theory by its opponents, and even by its erstwhile friends.
South Africa has long been regarded by the Fourth International as one of the countries where Trotsky's proposition that the dynamic of the bourgeois revolution would lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat would be decisively confirmed. The fight of the Black masses for one person, one vote within a single unified South African state evidently provides the main demand of the revolutionary upsurge today. Yet, as the report presented to the February 1985 meeting of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International maintains, the special nature of South African capitalism powerfully underlines this democratic demand's anti-capitalist thrust. The founding conference of the Congress of South African Trade Unions adopted a set of resolutions which provides a radical agenda of working class demands which combine with the national and democratic aims of the mass struggle today to reinforce that working class dynamic to the revolution. The report not only outlines the bare bones of this thesis, but provides substantial empirical evidence to prove its case. Its publication here, we believe, will be a substantial contribution to the international debate that has been spurred by the most recent upsurge of the mass movement and we hope will elicit a response from within the South African revolutionary movement itself.
In his article on the land question in Latin America, Margarito Montes Parra argues that when the theory of permanent revolution was being formulated. Trotsky took for his examples agrarian problems in extremely backward and underdeveloped countries. Margarito Montes Parra argues that capitalist penetration of the countryside in the majority of Latin American countries today confirms Trotsky's basic thesis that the land question cannot be resolved separately from the other basic problems of society, but is closely linked to the struggle for proletarian power. On the other hand, the role of the state in the countryside and the changing nature of the
Introduction 5 ruling class in Latin America means that this relationship is much more transparent than it was at the time that Trotsky wrote. This conclusion is based on practical experience. Margarito Montes Parra is a political committee member of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT). The PRI, one of the largest sections of the Fourth International, gained six deputies in the Mexican parliament in the July 1985 general elections. For some years it has carried out extensive work amongst the peasantry, participating in the leadership of one of the largest peasant organisations in Mexico. The author is his party's spokesperson on this work. His article is based on a report given to the political bureaus meeting of Latin American sections of the Fourth international which met in September of last year. It thereby reflects a broad span of experience on the continent.
The final contribution to the journal is likewise based on practical experience. Zbigniew Kowalewski was elected in June 1981 to the presidium of the Lodz region leadership of Solidarnosc and was a delegate from that region to the national congress of the union. He was one of the main participants in the Lublin group, one of the two national centres for the self-management movement which was born within Solidarnosc. Caught outside Poland at the time of the imposition of martial law in December 1981, he has since lived in France. We publish here a chapter from his recent book Rendez-vous nos usines! (Paris: La Breche 1985). Kowalewski argues that the experience of the Polish revolution not only presage events in other Eastern European countries, but in fact will be decisive in terms of any revolution where the working class plays the central role. He argues that the particular character of Solidarnosc, overcoming narrow trade divisions within the working class by its geographically-based forms of representation, represents a vital transitional form of working class organisation. In a passage that will be controversial with many readers he argues that some insights of such 'council communist' thinkers as Pannekoek and Gorter have been too easily dismissed. He also contends that revolutionary Marxists in the West must take note of the view of such Eastern European socialists as Petr Uhl that workers must be freed not only in civic life but also at the point of production if they are to play a full role in constructing a new socialist society.
It can be seen from the range and character of the contributors that one of the first aims of the magazine is to base itself on and intersect with those forces which are actually in the process of formulating a line for their political practice. This process of trying to assimilate these experiences, both of our own and other revolutionary movements, is at the centre of the Fourth International's work in all its different aspects. It is the core around which the Fourth International organises its forces in over 50 countries and holds representative conferences to formulate an international understanding of world revolution. Our magazine aims to help promote that process as a modest contribution to the building of the mass revolutionary international which is our goal.
French francs preferred. Cheques to PEC. Postal transfers to PEC. CCP No 2 322 42T
Mail all subs to IV. 2 rue Richard Lenoir. 93108 Montreuil. France.
The 1985 collection of International Viewpoint is now available. There will only be a very weapon in understanding world events.
Not only does it provide a record of the struggle of the international working class and its allies, it gives a voice to ail those struggling for socialism.
with the French language Inprecor, IVP also gives news and statements of the well as resolutions and declarations of its leading bodies.
build international solidarity movements
1o0: with the South African workers, with the British miners and for the international campaign for reproductive rights for women. IVP has also provided unrivalled coverage on Poland and in the debate in the international peace movement.
BLOCK LETTERS PLEASE
LAST NAME
ADDRESS.
CITY...
RENEWAL.
Subscription rates six
Surface mail
All countries
Air mail
Europe. Middle East.
135
S Atrica
165
The Americas. Africa
185
Asia limited number. so rush your orders now.
International Viewpoint is an indispensable
Produced every fortnight in conjunction organisations of the Fourth International as
IVP is proud of its record in helping to
Paris. Bank transfers to PEC. BNP Robespierre. Account 230179/90
Sterling: Cheques to International Viewpoint.
COUNTRY..
Exchange rates one mnths year
FF
120
4.50
120FF 200FF
135
12.50
165
15.00
185
17.50
18.00
200
245
20.00
245
300
300
27.50
340 31.20
340
The cost for each collection. including postage, is £11/$15/120FF.
International Viewpoint
Fourth International review of news and events
Marcos caugit with hand in ballet bor,
Subscribe now!
FIRST NAME..
CODE.
SUBSCRIPTION.
$
16
19
25
31
37
42
47
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
nematione ЛЕМРОЇ SPECIAL: Giant step by Black labor in South Africe The test gl Ibe Norbers lish by dedicas, breed's deportabions
ERNEST MANDEL