march to the right of the PT leadership, and of being seen to fight for this in the eyes of the masses.
Other DS comrades did not necessarily disagree with this, but placed more emphasis on the negative direction taken by the PT government's latest economic decisions, the difficulty of surviving for long inside a government of this dynamic.
All seemed to agree that a number of crucial issues - especially Lula's plans to push through neo-liberal reforms of the pension system and the labour laws, and his commitment to grant autonomy to the Central Bank (a la Gordon Brown) - would force a decisive confrontation in the coming months. The discussion was how best you prepared the ranks of the PT and popular masses for that confrontation.
Many delegates, including myself, whilst being reassured by some aspects of the debate remained worried that the pressures of holding such a ministerial position might in the end be destructive. Capitalist restoration There was also a separate discussion on the restoration of capitalism - in Eastern Europe, Russia and the ex-Soviet republics), China and Vietnam.
There was, however, continuing ambiguity as to the stage this has reached in some countries, particularly China. This was unsatisfactorily from the point of view of the ISG, which wanted a clear recognition that the process of restoration was complete in all these countries.
Comrades from Hong Kong argued strongly that China was now a capitalist state with a repressive regime. WTO membership they argued, which has criteria for the marketisation of every sector of the economy, had completed the process. Islamic fundamentalism, and Palestine.
Another significant debate was around an LCR (France) Central Committee amendment on the war and Islamic fundamentalism, which drew a closer parallel between
Islamic fundamentalism and imperialism
than most delegates were prepared to
accept. In the end this amendment was • The debate on Palestine centred around the significance of the struggle ... The formula eventually adopted was for "a secular and unitary binational state" heavily defeated.
The debate on Palestine centred around the significance of the struggle of the Palestinians to world politics, and the state form the Fl should call for as a solution to the plight of the Palestinians.
The ISG proposed an amendment arguing for the defence of the Palestinians to be put at the centre of our anti-war work, and went on to call for "a unitary and secular democratic state with full rights and protection for minorities" as the solution to their struggle for national self determination.
The formula eventually adopted was for "a secular and unitary bi-national state", with, of course, full democratic rights for minorities within it. The tasks of revolutionaries today The debate on the tasks of revolutionaries today centred on how to build the Fl, and what role it should play in today's conditions of a strong anti-globalisation movement and a left which is reshaping itself both at the national and the international level.
It was introduced by Francois Vercammen (European co-ordinator of the FI) who stressed:
• A new radicalisation amongst young people which is becoming increasingly antiimperialist;
• The need to be fully involved in the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement;
• The need to construct new parties to the left of social democracy as the best way to take the workers movement forward, as social democracy moves to the right;
• The need to co-ordinate the new anti-capitalist parties at a regional/continental level;
The need for the Fl to build itself more effectively if it is going to work effectively in the broader movement, whether this is the anti-capitalist movement or new broad and radical parties of the left;
• The need for the far-left to overcome its own divisions and begin a process of recomposition.
The "tasks" text opens this way: "The new political cycle in the activity, programmatic and political orientation and organisation of the workers movement and the social and popular movements puts resistance on the agenda against the ruling class's brutal offensive. It poses the strategic task of defeating the 'social liberalism' that still rallies a majority in the workers and popular movement, and of (re)building the movement on an anti-capitalist, internationalist, ecologist and feminist basis. This battle turns around two questions, opposition to the war and opposition to neoliberalism...
"We find ourselves in a very particular situation. The working class is still on the defensive, but the radical left is recovering and regaining the political initiative on a grand scale. Its goal is to affirm a bold, anticapitalist, social and political left that aims at influencing and orienting struggles and mobilisations".
The text goes on to talk in practical terms about the need to build the Fl itself it is to intervene effectively into such broader movements. It points to the need to
strengthen the sections, strengthen the international centre, and strengthen the
suardut fional political co-ordination of the Fl.
It also resolves to continue to work in a non-sectarian way with other sections of the far left and to continue with direct discussions with other far-left groupings where that is possible and fruitful, for example the discussions the Fl have been having with the IST. Programmatic advance The congress adopted two important programmatic texts - one on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people (LGBT), and the other on Ecology and Socialism.
Drawing heavily on the ground breaking programmatic work Women's Liberation developed by the Fourth International in the 1970s the new Lesbian and Gay text firmly places the struggle for Lesbian and Gay Liberation as a key task for revolutionaries today.
As well as theoretically situating oppression in the patriarchal family and in the commodification of sexuality the session highlighted the important role played by our comrades in building autonomous LGBT movements in widely diverse situations from combating machismo in Mexico and Uruguay to dealing with attempts to co-opt gay movements into anti-immigrant antiIslamic) campaigns in parts of Europe. Many comrades speaking emphasized the importance to take this document and turn it into reality.
Paul Wilcox (ISG) spoke about the need to use this document as tool to re-build the Gay movement and with the up coming war in Iraq Paul said "it is important that we link the struggles Lesbian and Gay oppression with the struggles of peoples from the middle east. Barriers between socialists and wil only be broken if we work with the Islamic community, and not to go down the dead end of islamaphobia" Ecology and socialism This was followed by an equally very good session on ecology and socialism. Starting from the premise that the economic logic of capitalism, production for profit, threatens our very existence, the debate stressed the need to apply ourselves to building the ecological mass movement.
The ISG presented a supplementary text that argued that the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and resulting climate change was the biggest single issue of global scope threatening the environment at the present time. Redrafting the Fl statutes Unaltered since a previous redraft in 1974 new Statues were needed to mark our present organisational functioning.
Whilst it sounds rather dry and constitu tional, the debate raised issues which are central to the construction of a revolution. ary international to day - in particular the issue of international democratic central. ism, or the relationship between an interna tional centre and the sections of the inter national.
Whilst the 1974 statutes were based or international democratic centralism, thi had not, in reality, been practised in the F for a number of years, with the practica result that the Fl does not impose tactica choices on its national sections.
Democratic centralism is essential to th functioning and effectiveness of nationa sections (i.e. democratic and collectiv decision making linked to the obligation everyone including minorities to carry ther out, or at least not oppose such decisions At the international level, however, agree ment within the International needs to exis at the level of programme and principl rather than at the level of the tactic approach to the class struggle in each ind vidual country.
By the end of the week the Fourt International was indeed "relaunched' Strengthened by the debate, confident in i interventions around the world, the Fourt International is present in every continen with significant sections (i.e. with membe ship in the thousands), in Europe, th Americas and Asia.
This puts us in a good position to bui
opposition to war, opposition to neo-libe alism, and to contribute to the rebuilding the left and the construction of a stror socialist alternative to the horrors of capita
ism.
page 14 of the scan
14 soclalist resistance March 2003