Summary of the positions adopted in 17th OKDE Congress (13-14/2/2010)
A. The Global Economic and Political Situation
The global economic crisis which burst two years ago –starting with the collapse of the housing mortgage bubble- has been growing. During 2009, the world GDP, the global trade, the GDP of all the imperialist countries, etc, have been presenting negative figures and they will probably continue to do so during 2010, as well. There has also been a significant decrease in the pace of the economic growth that the newly emerging countries (China, India, Brazil, etc) have been presenting, while a number of countries either of the former eastern block or of Africa, etc, are on the verge of collapse and bankruptcy.
The measures that the capitalist governments –and especially the governments of the imperialistic countries- throughout the world have taken (offer of the gigantic amount of 10-15 trillion euros, inconceivable expansion of credit, of deficits and debts, increase of unemployment, shrinkage of standards of living, breaking up of labour relations, of workers’ conquests, of social security, etc) may have slowed down the crisis a bit but they have, in no case, cured its causes (fall of the rate of profit, overproduction of commodities, over-accumulation of capital, etc). What the measures of the capitalist governments have done is that they have aggravated all the causes of the crisis and, in that sense, what we have to expect for –even if we assume that there will be a short stabilization of the recession- is a new severe and possibly destructive intensification of the crisis. Besides, all these measures have been gradually used since the beginning of the long downturn wave (late 1960s and early 1970s).
However, the crisis that the world capitalist system is dealing with is not only economic or sheer economic. Neither is it a circular crisis or a crisis of the industrial cycle. It is a structural crisis of the global capitalist/ imperialistic system, which intensifies its impasses and its imbalances (the biggest in its history and far bigger than those of the 1929 crisis) and results from the crisis or even the failure of all the strategic choices adopted since the beginning of the long downturn wave…
a) Neoliberalism in a complete impasse
The policy of neoliberalism, which was adopted, almost uniformly, by the global bourgeoisie as the only “remedy” against the crisis, after having been applied for 35 years, is leaving behind economic, social, political and environmental ruins, as well as enormous impasses for the world capitalist/ imperialistic system.
Neoliberalism and neoliberal policies were never, essentially, legitimized by the labour masses, even though, for a short period of time, they were offered their tolerance, mainly due to the confusion caused by the collapse of the so called “existing socialism”, or even of the social-democratic “socialism”, which, in their eyes, were seen as the collapse or failure of socialism as a whole, or more generally of the alternative to capitalism.
Its results and its intense discredit, not only by workers but also by petit bourgeois sections or even parts of the middle bourgeoisie, have caused severe blows in its once unquestionable power. However, it would be a mistake to come to the conclusion that we are about to watch its abolition or a return to some kind of Keynesianism. ….what we are about to witness is an even harder neoliberal attack against the hard core of workers, poor strata and youth’s social and political rights.
b) Globalization in the period of crisis
After the collapse of the countries of the so called “existing socialism”, as well as of its economic and political periphery (various nationalist, petit bourgeois, anti-imperialistic regimes), globalization has become the suitable vehicle of politics aiming at the re-incorporation (and partly the re-unification) of approximately the 1/3 of the planet in the global capitalist market. This huge geographical expansion of the world market, along with the potentials of even bigger overexploitation and economic control of the dependent countries -which were opened and applied for a certain period of time thanks to the privatizations the depreciated prices of raw materials, the monopoly in international credit, etc- created, in theory, the fundamental preconditions for a recovery of the world economy, if not for a way out of the crisis and certainly for a complete domination and recovery of the imperialistic economies -first and foremost of the USA (they used to talk about a new golden century).
In fact, however, the opposite happened. Firstly, not only the world capitalist economy did not recover, … but we had, all the more often, stock market crises and a sharp aggravation of the economy from the first months of 2000 to the explosive situation that we are experiencing nowadays. Secondly, the economies of the imperialistic countries, of the USA and the EU will be even more weakened compared to their rivals (China, Brazil, India, etc)…. Thirdly, when globalization began, the imperialistic countries had the monopoly in credit…. Nowadays, we have significant changes in this sector too: As far as credit is concerned, we have an almost complete turnover of the situation, with the developing countries having become the lending powers and having at their disposal the largest exchange reserves (first, by far, among them is China); the political superiority of the imperialists has weakened and is constantly and gradually questioned by these same powers as well as Russia; in the military sector, the dominance of the USA may still be unquestionable, but it is coming up against serious challenges, in the periphery, especially by Russia and China and, partly, by India and Brazil –with Russia remaining, thanks to its enormous nuclear arsenal, the only power that can strike a mortal blow to the American imperialism. Fourthly, as it was expected, the weakening of the American economy –not to mention all the other sectors- was bound to bring about, sooner or later, the weakening of the dollar as well, and especially the weakening of its dominance on the global economy. … We may not see on the horizon, at the moment, any other currency capable of taking the place of the dollar in the world economy, but its discredit has already began in many ways, first and foremost by the newly emerging powers. Of course, the role that the dollar plays is not only connected to the economic power of the USA, but also and mainly to the role that they play as the leading power of imperialism and as the global policeman; that is why things are getting more difficult, generally as well as specifically, for the dissenters.
c) The New Order in stagnation
During the 1990s and in the early 2000s, humanity experienced the New Order through four peripheral wars (Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq), dozens of imperialistic interventions and small wars, threats against a number of countries –especially against the so called countries of “the axe of evil” (Syria, Iran, North Korea, Libya), arrogant doctrines (which discredited or limited the application of international pacts and of the UN, doctrines allowing preventive wars or the use of nuclear weapons, etc), the expansion of military bases and of expeditionary imperialistic missions, as well as the increase of the military and war expenditures. There is no doubt that the New Order brought to the imperialists a few gains –at least at the beginning- which, however, were confined to Central Europe, the Balkans and a couple more places in the world.
Nevertheless, if we try to give an account of this policy and of its most aggressive form, which was applied by the neo-conservatives and the Bush administration, we can say that the outcome is negative and, in any case, a lot below imperialists’ expectations and plans. Their military victories in Iraq and Afghanistan tend to turn to strategic defeats; the control they used to have over South America either does not exist any more, or it is limited to a couple of regimes –more than that, we are witnessing, in this part of the world, changes of anti-imperialistic, left direction (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and partly Nicaragua) which have, essentially altered the scenery at the former “backyard” of the USA; the gains they used to have in the former soviet republics have become controversial; Africa has stopped being the exclusive field of their competitions and they are now confronting the rapid, increasing economic (and military) penetration of China and the other developing countries. And that is not all; they have led the American imperialism to even bigger debts and deficits (trade, financial, etc) and, more generally, to an economic weakening which has forced it to abandon –for the time being- this policy, even since Bush administration, and seek for another one in the face of Obama. However, day after day, this “different policy” of Obama is being abandoned and, all the more so, in a very short period of time.
d) The crisis of the global bourgeois authority
The crisis of the global bourgeois authority is of course, first and foremost a result of the global capitalist system’s crisis and, especially, of the extremely acute competitions that it creates; it is also, however, directly connected to the economic and political weakening of the American imperialism. Undeniable witness of this crisis is the incompetence, not only of the leading imperialistic power, but also of all the three imperialistic centres (two, in fact, since Japan is off the game), of the G7 or G8 and their wider replacement, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank and, of course the World Trade Organisation (whose existence tends to be forgotten) to impose total solutions to the global capitalist system.
WTO’s failure, due mainly to imperialists’ weakness to compete the emerging countries, but not only because of that, is gradually giving its place, on the one hand, to protective policies either directly (customs) or indirectly (privatizations and subsidies to banks, industries, or different projects aiming at increasing demand -for example replacement of cars, electrical appliances, etc) and, on the other, to printing of dollars or the deliberate and, to an extend, arbitrary downslide of the American currency.
The failure of Bush’s policy does not mean that the American imperialism is not capable of even harder choices. For this period, it has chosen Obama to apply a milder policy (as it seems until now) in order to find a way out of the crisis. However a failure of his policy –which is rather certain- is due to push forward even more conservative powers than those of the Bush’s staff. Nevertheless, in any case, the American imperialism is not going to watch its continuous downgrading calm and idle. The Obama administration, conducting an enormous military budget of 680 billion dollars, has already begun their new armament, which includes new “flexible” nuclear weapons, new military bases and expeditionary missions (in Africa, the Philippines, South America, etc), a reinforcement of the so called Afghan-Pakistani front with a “new” cheaper “antimissile shield” and “new” plans for the “star war”.
The current crisis of the capitalist/ imperialistic system is deep and complicated. It may not still have the depth of the 1929 crisis (this is true as far as some figures are concerned, yet we are still at the beginning), but all the quality elements are far larger than the elements of that crisis and this also applies for the level of the capitalist development. Never before in the history of capitalism/ imperialism, especially of the imperialistic forces, have we had debts, deficits, expansion of credit, fictitious capitals, toxic bonds and derivatives in such a quantity and of that kind -and that not only in absolute figures but also in connection to the size of economy, or, more accurately, to the productive base of economy.
And here, exactly, is the heart of the current crisis’ problem, not in the financial-credit sector, or in some of its excesses (accounting and puerile, in effect), or in its executives’ (golden boys’) irrational actions. The crisis stems from the constant weakening of the economy’s productive base –that does not, however, mean that we do not have surpluses and over-accumulation of capital. Year after year, since the beginning of the long downturn wave in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the productive base of economy, in the advanced capitalist countries (USA, EU, Japan, etc) has been declining and, in 2000, it suffered a sharp downturn. In order to deal with the situation, capitalists and governments have turned, all the more, to borrowing, deficits, low interest rates, precarious lending to households and speculators and, finally, to stock-market bubbles, in their effort to boost the demand and, in this way, to increase businesses’ profitability. However this was impossible for two reasons: First, because lending could not keep boosting the demand, the moment that real wages kept decreasing and, more generally, workers and poor strata’s standards of living, kept falling. Second, due to the competition of the emerging powers, and particularly China- this provided the market with the same commodities, but in lower prices.
The measures taken, today, by all the capitalist governments and particularly by those of the advanced capitalist countries, are no different from the ones they have used all together since the start of the long downturn wave; they are simply much more amplified in quantity. The mythical sums of money used can only offer a stabilization of the crisis, or a small postponement so that it can burst a little later even more severely. The productive basis of economy cannot afford all these debts that the capitalist system has created and, more than that, it cannot “erase” them using technical means and techniques, all the more because it constantly decays, the system’s recourses and resistance mechanisms have been used up and the productive basis of economy is stably moving towards South-East Asia –without return, as it seems.
There is one more major issue concerning the function and the balance of the world capitalist/ imperialistic system, which can be proved extremely crucial for the advanced imperialistic countries, in the near future. Nowadays, the transfer of surplus value from the undeveloped, dependent countries to the advanced, imperialistic ones, which used to take place by virtue of the uneven exchange and of credit, not only is facing significant difficulties, but it also tends to stop or even be partially reversed. Exports from the emerging economies –particularly China- towards the advanced imperialistic countries are constantly increasing, including capital equipment products, while credit has been totally reversed.
The inconceivable expansion of credit, the terrifying inflation of fictitious capital, the constant substitution of a fictitious economy for the real one (with every kind of derivatives, bubbles, “toxic” bonds, etc) have become the only means of reproduction for the capitalist system, pushing aside its basic means of reproduction, that is, drawing surplus value from exploiting labour. This “abnormal” situation (a phenomenon that generally exists, especially in imperialism, that is, in the period of capitalism’s historic decay) constantly destroys the fundamental regulating rule of the capitalist economy, the law of value. As a result, the capitalist economy and the capitalist system, in general, have been deregulated, constantly decayed and have been bursting, all the more often, into intense and longer crises, on the one hand, while, on the other, they have been having all the more short and limited recoveries. Undeniable witness of this situation is the reality of the last 35 years itself, with its successive crises, outbursts and crashes (1973-74, 1981-82, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1991-92, 1997, 2001-03 and, of course, the current colossal crisis which has burst since 2007 and its end, if there will be one, cannot be seen yet).
For the first time in capitalist system’s history we have, along with the crisis itself, an enormous ecological crisis, as well as a food crisis. The irrational exploitation of natural and economic resources and the constant pursuit of profit have destroyed the environment in an extremely dangerous degree, threatening the survival of humanity itself. Pollution and environmental changes are the main causes of the extreme weather conditions that burst, all the more often, throughout the planet, causing thousands of casualties and huge damages in production, every year.
The dilemma Socialism or savagery -or, even better, disaster- has never been more direct and better timed than today.
B. Labour movement and revolutionary movement
Facing such a deep and complicated crisis of the world capitalist system and of the social and political forces it is represented by, on the one hand, and a deep crisis of the labour movement resulting from the historic –among others- failure of Social-democracy, Stalinism and trade union bureaucracy, as well as the weaknesses of the extreme and revolutionary left, on the other, the consciousness of the broad working masses and the youth is understandably contradictory and fluid, a constant pendulum between passiveness, indifference and abandonment, disgust and rage, resistance and revolt.
Spectacular changes of the situation that the consciousness of the broad working masses and the youth is in should not be expected for as long as the dialectic between the objective and, especially, the subjective factors remain the same. Nevertheless, this consciousness is daily whipped by the structural crisis of the capitalist/ imperialistic system and its impasses, the ineffectiveness and the failure of the neoliberal policies, the crisis of the global bourgeois authority, the savage attacks against the social and political rights, the predatory imperialistic attacks and wars, the destruction of environment, as well as the destruction of the moral, spiritual and cultural values. This does not mean that consciousness develops in a uniform and straight way, or always towards the same direction; it can move back and forth or towards both these directions at the same time.
The condition of the subjective factors is equally or even more important than the condition of the objective ones, as far as the development of consciousness is concerned.
The historic and political failure of the reformist parties and the trade union bureaucracy has weakened their influence and their control on the working class. However, this by itself is not enough to produce a new consciousness. The extreme and revolutionary left or major parts of it, not only have presented, during this period, weaknesses in their political platforms and their policies, but they have also turned into reformist unions (the Italian Refoundation, the French LCR, the Portuguese Left Block, part of the Greek extreme left, etc).
The last episode –and undoubtedly the most significant- of this mutation of some revolutionary forces is the decay of the United Secretariat of the 4th International which, after disintegrating it (ideologically, politically, practically and organisationally) it is now preparing to also burry it, formally, very soon.
Pointing out the above mentioned objective and subjective developments does not imply that we cannot have major struggles, revolts, anti-imperialistic and anti-capitalist struggles, revolutionary events. The crisis of the capitalist/ imperialistic system, along with the failure of neoliberalism and of the neoliberal model of work and society organisation and management, are so big and have piled up so much explosive material at the foundations of the system that complaining and disappointments will be put aside and “the struggle to be saved from it” will be brought constantly back in the agenda. There is one more significant factor in the current crisis which can be proved definitive for the future of capitalism and humanity: the increasing unemployment and semi-unemployment (part time work, precarious work, etc) with what they mean for the standards of living and the survival of working masses. During the crisis of the 1930s, the consequences deriving from unemployment and part time employment could, more or less, be absorbed or blunted thanks to the relationships which existed with the countryside and the agricultural economy… as well as thanks to the family relationships which used to be strong. Nowadays neither exists, hired workers exceed 90% -in our country they are almost 65%- and whatever reserves, personal or family ones, are gradually running out. It may be difficult for the reaction of working people, the poor strata and the youth to be defined in case of a deterioration of the situation which is bound to occur in the near future, it is, however, easy for everyone to see the collapse of every balance, the constant spasms, the wild situations, the social and political shifts and changes, the social explosions, the insurrections, etc, in which the bourgeois society is entering. This is the background of the abrupt and sudden alterations in working people’s, the poor strata’s and the youth’s consciousness –which is the basic characteristic of the period.
The revolutionary plan is based on the objective conditions and the spontaneous movement/ consciousness of the masses. However, its fulfilment is related to the course of the class struggle with its fights and their quality, along with their leadership and its quality. Therefore, without a revolutionary leadership in the tough struggles, the insurrections and the revolutionary events, which are in the way, we are not going to have a significant change of working class’s consciousness –the experience of the last 15 years has proved so.
In every country around the world, we, occasionally, have had great struggles, social explosions, even insurrections. All these events have not always been successful, but they have certainly aggravated the political situation and the crisis of the capitalist system, on the one hand, and on the other, they have formed a different consciousness within the working people, the poor strata and the youth, as well as political shifts and changes. What, sometimes, creates confusion and obscurity is that these shifts and changes are not straight; they are often contradictory with many zigzags and inconsistencies. In fact, there is a rejection of the dominant political, economic and social situation (rejection which is not limited to neoliberalism), spontaneously or consciously, an agonised quest for something new and radically different. This more or less generalised quest of the radically different is not specific, formed, or united, but, in great extend, it has a common basis: it rejects the current state of things and it probably does not want to be governed the way it used to be. There is nothing peculiar in this situation. The specification, formation and unification of the masses’ quests is the work of their vanguard and, more specifically, of the revolutionary party, especially in periods like the current one, when the historic confusion concerning the socialist solution is still prevalent.
E. Our intervention
OKDE has to attend all the developments very closely: the structural crisis of capitalism (national and international), the condition of the labour movement and the developments within it, the social and political shifts and changes in the working people’s dispositions. The gravity of the situation, the developments within the labour movement’ social and political organisations –especially within the extreme left- not only in our country, obliges us to continue the self-reliant, independent building up of our organisation, unexceptionably and using much stricter criteria, as well as, build up a political environment around us and use much stricter criteria as far as our cooperation and common action with other organisations is concerned. A new period is about to begin, an emergency situation for the working people, the poor strata and the youth is coming. In the course of this situation, the hard core of their social and political rights is about to be hit with extreme cruelty, resulting to the rocketing of unemployment, underemployment, poverty, beggarliness and the fringe of the outcasts. It will also result to the deterioration of the overall standard of living and the environment, as well as the degradation of all kinds of values (human, moral, spiritual, cultural, etc). The political crisis, the crisis of the political scene, the crisis of bipartisanism and the bourgeois parties, the social crisis are about to experience a new bulge, in a variety of forms. The combination of all the above produces continuous shocks to the working people’s consciousness and accelerates the social and political shifts and changes in the whole range of social and political forces.
The intervention of our organisation must be determined by the total of the objective situation, the revolutionary subject and the revolutionary forces, not fragmentarily or momentarily. The struggles of the previous period (about social security, teachers’, students’, etc), the new trade unions, even the incidents of last December have not been formed outside the period and the workers’ consciousness, or as an exception to them. Neither have they occurred out of nowhere or spontaneously. They are the work of the objective situation, the condition of consciousness and the conscious and persistent effort of thousands of militants –this does not mean that they were organised by anybody, except, maybe, partially. All these struggles have had weaknesses and many problems –not so much as far as their dynamic is concerned, but concerning their planning and their platform- which result from the condition of the revolutionary forces. There is, also, another aspect which indicates the objective situation, the workers’ consciousness and, especially that of the youth: the “bulge” of anarchists and autonomists, who may best express the movement’s ineffectiveness and crisis, or even the masses’ despair, yet, their “bulge” shows some aspects of the masses’ quest, some aspects of radicalization and politicalisation of the masses, much more so, in quite a large scale, compared to labour movement’s forces.
Our organisation’s intervention must strictly have a major goal: its own building up within the working class. In order to achieve that goal, apart from all the other necessary things (platform, policy, planning and practice), it has to raise a hard front against the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois decay, against the moral, political and cultural degradation, against the debasement of all the values. No intervention, no matter how many of all the other elements it contains, will be able to bear fruits if it lucks this element or if it does not determine its attitude based on the way that the working class lives and moves -especially its weakest sections- if it does not put in front the political interest and the sacrifices it may demand.
The task of building up OKDE must adjust its tactics and attitude to the new data of the period of crisis, impoverishment, precarious employment, etc. It must set clear goals and priorities and, at the same time, not leave anything unenclosed to our policy.
We must give priority to our intervention into the weakest sections of the working people and the youth.
We must examine all the possible ways of intervention to the unemployed and the immigrants.
The task of building up the “Workers’ Fightback”, our trade union fraction, has to be supplemented with the transfer of comrades wherever it is necessary or where we want to create a new intervention, even if this means some economic sacrifice. The development of the movement and building up of Counter-offensive and OKDE must be promoted.
Concerning the big issues (social security, labour relations, heavy and unwholesome jobs, education, etc) and solidarity or support mobilizations, we must set off permanent campaigns at work places, as well as, neighbourhoods, and towns/ cities with the aim of creating base organisations. We need to organise presentations – debates, particularly on these issues.
We need to liven up labour culture by reinforcing solidarity, the spirit of equality and sociability through our joint cultural and entertaining cultivation.
Therefore, we must examine the basic pylons of our policy and intervention from this point of view:
a) Unifying policy, unity in struggles and struggle for unity over a platform for workers’ salvation and on the basis of class independence. However, unifying policy, though necessary and of strategic character, should not become dogmatic -that is, it should not overlook or disregard workers’ dispositions- it should move on to political and organisational splits when trade union or reformist leaderships abandon or betray a struggle and when there are potentials/ correlations for something else, or preconditions for a different unity even in the long run…. Unifying policy does not mean tagging along bureaucrats, reformists or extreme leftists.
b) Reconstruction – recomposition of the movement; that is, along with the unifying policy it is necessary to break with the trade union and reformist leaderships, both on the political and organisational level, in a constant effort to change the political and social correlations within the unionist/ labour movement and society in general. For that reason:
We build up anti-capitalist tendencies which are mainly consisted of our trade union and student parties, along with their political and trade union influences. We do not participate in any other formation but we pursuit the common action in every level (political and practical) on an equal basis.
We intervene massively in trade unions and the movement with the aim of building up the anti-capitalist tendency, our trade union and student parties and our organisation.
We promote and reinforce every type of self-organisation, General Assemblies, struggle committees, etc, everywhere, in our effort to regenerate trade unions and associations, overcome bureaucracy, motivate the masses, build up a militant movement, build up our parties and our organisation.
We organise the masses in every opportunity given; we create new trade unions in the fields where there are not any, or even where it becomes necessary due to the abandonment of whole sections of workers by the bureaucracy -whenever the essential preconditions exist.
We pursuit the common action of the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialistic forces, when this helps the development of the labour movement, not as an end in itself.
c) Building up OKDE and the 4th International is the essential tool for building up a strong labour movement and promoting the Socialist Revolution.
The necessity of 4th International’s Regeneration
The 4th International, just as the previous ones, constitutes the political and organisational expression of internationalism, which is an essential strategy of the proletariat and a major part of the revolutionary programme.
In Marx and Engel’s period, internationalism reflected the creation of a first world commodity market and was based on the ordinary workers’ exploitation conditions as well as on the need to deal with the alliances that the various bourgeois classes had created against bourgeois-democratic or labour insurrections and revolutions.
In the epoch of imperialism, the significance of internationalism has been upgraded qualitatively, as imperialism has created an international labour division and it has unified the world economy in a united organic ensemble, which is dominated by the rule of unequal and combined development. The political consequences of this evolution were many: the need to defend the colonial revolutions from the imperialistic interventions; the need to help the socialist revolutions in undeveloped countries; the encounter of inter-imperialistic wars; even the fact that socialism cannot be achieved in one country alone, it can only be achieved globally (which highlights the common goal that workers share in imperialistic as well as undeveloped countries).
After the Second World War and the rapid growth of multinationals, another dimension of internationalism has been put in, that is, the need for workers employed in multinationals to get organised in trade unions as for them to be able to win even in economic struggles, these struggles have to take place in all, or at least in most of the plants of the particular multinational. It is obvious that the delay of the working class organisation on the basis of this dimension of internationalism against capital’s internationalism is a great burden nowadays.
In the epoch of globalisation, internationalism acquires a much more vital significance as it reflects the expansion and further growth of multinationals, the unprecedented development of the international labour division, the creation of many international capital organisations (IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc), the creation of various integrations (e.g. EU, NAFTA, etc), the implementation of the policies of Globalisation and New Order with the aim of encountering the crisis, the implementation, essentially, of a common policy (neoliberalism) for the encounter of the crisis by all the countries, etc. These developments, along with the retreat/ degradation of reformism, which has divided the global labour movement, constitute the objective basis for the emergence of a qualitatively new internationalism, during the last decade. Therefore, we do not only have solidarity movements towards social or democratic revolutions, as we did in the past, but we have the emergence of a new and necessarily international movement.
In the current conjuncture, the role of the International is becoming decisive for the survival of humanity if we comprehend the depth of neoliberal policies, the growth of xenophobia and racism, the need for a further exploitation of undeveloped countries (an exploitation which leads to real genocides and destruction), the imminent multiplication of imperialistic interventions, the discernible danger of a world war, the enormous ecological and food crisis.
On the other hand, the role of the International is also becoming decisive for the reconstruction/ recomposition of the world labour movement, as well as of the various “national” labour movements because of:
a) the composite, complex and contradictory way in which consciousness and workers’ attitude develop. The danger of “subjective” and “momentary” views to be adopted is bigger than ever.
b) the breach that has appeared in the traditions of the labour movement, which makes re-connection painful, dangerous and especially difficult.
c) the gigantic work that is demanded for the theoretical and political analysis of the changes which have occurred in the capitalist system itself, the classes, the vanguard, etc.
d) the need for an international organisation of a by nature international movement.
e) the urgent need for the quickest possible building up of “national” leaderships.
Never before in history, has the characterisation of the International as “the world party of the socialist revolution” acquired its full meaning as much as today. Consequently, every revolutionary is forced to build up the International, alongside with the revolutionary party in their country, as an essential tool for the socialist revolution and the building up of socialism.
The degeneration of United Secretariat’s leadership
The degeneration of United Secretariat’s leadership has not been momentary and it certainly has had a lot of objective, as well as subjective, causes, which have also been mentioned in some of our previous documents. Briefly, this degeneration results from:
a) the underestimation and downgrading of the significance that the crisis of the capitalist system has. Even today, its analyses remain vague and “hesitant”, emphasising mainly the crisis of the neoliberal model of growth rather than the deep crisis of the system itself.
b) the underestimation of the potentials of development that the struggles of the labour movement have and, indirectly, the underestimation of the working class itself, along with a persistent overestimation of reformism.
c) the abandonment of the principles of revolutionary Marxism and of the basis of the revolutionary programme which consists of the first four congresses of the 3rd International, the documents of the International Left Opposition and the resolutions of the congresses of the 4th International. The abandonment of democratic centralism and the adoption of a bureaucratic, social-democratic-type function.
d) the abandonment of the strategic goal of building up the International and its national sections, and the adoption of an international forum of sections and anti-capitalist parties.
e) the abandonment of socialist revolution’s suitability.
The result of all the above is that the United Secretariat’s leadership has put up with the participation –or has silently given its approval to the participation- in bourgeois governments, it has disintegrated almost all the sections into the so called anti-capitalist parties, which are reformist formations when they are not petit-bourgeois ones and, finally, it has disintegrated the 4th International ideologically, politically and organisationally –and very soon it is going to disintegrate it formally, too (the planned congress may be conducted, but it cannot be characterised as a real congress of the 4th International).
At the moment, the only position which the United Secretariat’s leadership is grabbed by in order to differ itself from the reformist left, is a confused declaration that it will not participate in any government with social-democrats –although this assurance, even when it is firmly stated, is nothing but a fig leaf, as there is an abandonment of the revolutionary programme (fact established too many times in the past).
All in all, there is an immediate need for the regeneration of the 4th International and our organisation must make any possible effort to that direction.
Organization of Communists Internationalists (Greece)
