In July 2007, after a debate at its Central majority of the Ligue Communiste French section of the Fourth agreed to call for the launch of a new anti-capitalist party (http://www.interna tionalviewpoint.org/ spip.php?article |29 0) At the summer university of the LCR at the end of August, party spokesperson and former Presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot launched a double appeal: for social resistance and the construction of a new anticapitalist party which we reprint here. Social resistance is essential, crucial, because on its outcome depends absolutely everything else. But struggles are not enough: they remain the orphans of a more political perspective, of a plan of urgent social and democratic measures, of a coherent vision of society, of a coherent global alternative, to rekindle hope
That is what is at stake in our proposal for a new party, anticapitalist, radical, internationalist, feminist, ecological, which aims revolutionise society: to change society, not just to make improvements!
Concretely, this new party could be collective regroupment of individuals - of individuals just like the majority of the exploited and oppressed population, determined to make their own voices heard at last, straight and to the point. sPaced with this today us Faced with the the left, faced with a global offensive led by the right and the Medef, the employmore ed us think matthand ers' federation, the right time!
Workers, young people, employees, women, immigrants: there is a part of the population and the world of work, today a minority but combative and radical,
hich refuses to put up w
ings, which is full of ho The madesment basis ve demonstrations with the militants of other political organisations, first of all with those of the the revolutions of the past.
GAUCHE Communist Party, militants committed in struggles but disoriented by the direction taken by their party, militants of the social movement, of the anti-globalisation movement, of the unions, those of other revolutionary organisations, who think that together we can go further
And even probably members and voters of the Socialist Party or the ecologists. All those who have been on the left of the 'plural left', on the left of the institutional left.
At the rate things are It's a question of regrouping all those who think that a society other than capitalism is possible, without having ready-made answers to every question, and drawing the balance sheet of going, they are on the left full stop! They think that, together, we can go further.
They think that another left is possible, which would be a political expression of the struggles, a rallying point, a point of resistance, by and for the popular classes, the working classes, the youth and, more generally all those who want to be in the vanguard of the resistance against capitalism.
Yes, it is necessary to draw all the lessons of the past, to understand why there have been periods of revolutionary ferment, political splits
the left notably between reformists and revolutionaries - and draw the dramatic balance sheet of counterrevolutions.
But you can have a history and a heritage without having your eyes fixed on the past. You can face the future full on, starting from how society is today.
On the rubble where so many illusions have been buried by social democracy and Stalinism we have to reconstruct a global social movement, rehabilitating at its heart an anticapitalist project which demonstrates that socialism and democracy are not contradictory.
This appeal is not just an appeal. It is also a question: do you think, like us, that the hour has come to construct a party which is internationalist, a party which is independent, a party which is anticapitalist, ecological and feminist, a party which wants to revolutionise society?
Internationalist, and therefore anti-racist. Internationalist In the sense which Che Guevara envisaged: capable of feeling the suffering when people are being killed in some part of the world, or when they are abandoned as is happening today in Darfur was, In Palestine and in Iraq, for example.
Capable of feeling the suffering but also the hope when they raise the flag of liberty, as we see beginning in Latin America.
Independent in the face of power, with an almost libertarian defiance of the institutions. We are not against participating in institutions per se... but on the basis of our independence.
The left is not divided on the question of power abstractly, between those who accept participating in it and those who refuse to do so on principle.
On this question, it is divided between those for whom, like us, it is one of the means to change society, and those who accept society as it is. Taking positions of power is not a taboo question, on condition that the popula. tion share it and that the parties of the anticapitalist left, while believing that they take positions of power, are not themselves taken captive by it. Anticapitalist, and not just antiliberal. For it is not just a question of resisting capitalist globalisation today. It's a question of proposing alternative solutions for financing urgent measures: wages, social protection, social housing, jobs...
That implies posing the crucial question of the distribution of wealth and its control by all.
It is a social question, but
also a question of democracy: who decides?
In the market economy, a privileged minority decides everyone, on the back of everyone and under the control of no one.
We think that in the workplaces, the neighbourhoods, the towns, it is the people themselves who are the best placed to determine their own needs and the means to satisty them.
The way forward is public provision and common goods which are free, rather than privatised as is the case today with the rule of the shareholders, the patenting of life itself, of genes and medicines It is the satisfaction of col lective needs by democratic planning rather than the law of supply and demand which leads society and environment down a dead end.
Today the fruits of the labour of all are appropriated by a small minority.
That is that that we want to change, so that everything comes back to everyone! But on the left, the private ownership of the means of production has become a taboo question.
A party which wants to revolutionise society?
It's a question of regrouping all those who think that a society other than capitalism is possible, without having ready-made answers to every question, and drawing the balance sheet of the revolutions of the past.
It's a question, with all those who are ready, of refounding and reinventing the socialism of the 21st century.