New International

New International A MAGAZINE OF MaRXIST POLITICS AND THEORY NUMBER 12 2005 EDITORIAL BOARD Contents editor Mary-Alice Waters In this issue managing editor by Jack Barnes 3 Steve Clark Their transformation contributing and ours editor Jack Barnes Socialist Workers Party Draft Resolution February 2005 19 INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANTS Capitalism’s long Anita Östling hot winter has begun Ron Poulsen by Jack Barnes 99 Michel Prairie Ólöf Andra Proppé Appendix Samad Sharif Crisis, boom, and revolution Jonathan Silberman 1921 reports by V.I. Lenin Mike Tucker and Leon Trotsky The world economic crisis and the tasks of communists by Leon Trotsky 215 A very unstable equilibrium by V.I. Lenin 269 Index 301 12NIl.indb 1 9/30/13 11:54:25 PM Copyright © 2005 by New International All rights reserved First printing, 2005 Fifth printing, 2015 ISSN 0737-3724 ISBN 978-0-87348-967-6 Manufactured in Canada New International is distributed internationally by Pathfinder Press: www.pathfinderpress.com Cover design: Eva Braiman Cover photograph: Saudi commandos landing on roof of compound housing foreign oil company employees, Khobar, May 2004. Four Islamic jihadists had taken hundreds of hostages, killing twenty- two. Photo taken from Al Arabiya television. 12NI0q.indd 2 8/30/2015 4:51:31 PM IN THIS ISSUE by Jack Barnes his issue of N e w I n t e r n a t i o n a l opens with “Their Transformation and Ours,” a resolution prepared in T the last several months by a commission of the So- cial ist Workers Party Na tional Committee. It is based on political reports and summaries I gave in November 2004 that were discussed and adopted by an expanded meet- ing of the SWP Na tional Committee in which leaders of Com mu nist Leagues in a number of countries, including Australia, Can ada, Iceland, New Zealand, Swe den and the United King dom, participated. The resolution has been submitted to the party’s mem- bership for discussion, leading to a vote at a convention scheduled for June 2005. Cen tered on several decisive points of world politics, it has been drafted to be read and discussed together with—as an integral component of—“Cap i tal ism’s Long Hot Win ter Has Begun,” the political report adopted by the party’s 2002 convention and the central article in this issue of New In ter na tional. “Their Transformation and Ours” analyzes the sharpen- ing interim pe ri al ist conflicts fueled both by the opening stages of a world depression and by the most far-reaching 3 12NIl.indb 3 9/30/13 11:54:25 PM 4 Jack Barnes shift in Wash ing ton’s military policy and organization since its preparations in the late 1930s to transform the nearly decade-long war in Asia and the European war of 1939–41 into a world war. Class-strug gle-minded workers and farmers must face—fully—this historic turning point for imperialism (and cataclysmic crisis for “the West” and “Christendom”). And draw satisfaction and enjoyment from being “in their face” as we chart a revolutionary course to confront it. The resolution weighs the importance of the begin- ning political transformation of militant workers who, impelled by these momentous changes, are taking the lead to reach for, organize, and use union power. As the so cial consequences of capitalist crises grow, as inevitable political conflicts sharpen between and within classes, and as probes to restrict political and democratic rights used by working people increase, these vanguard militants will join with other workers to resist accelerated employing-class assaults in the plants and the political arena, at home and abroad. ❖ As an appendix to “Cap i tal ism’s Long Hot Win ter Has Begun” we are running two reports debated and approved by the Third Con gress of the Com mu nist In- ter na tional, held in Mos cow in 1921, which I referred to several times in the 2002 convention report. Included here are “A Very Unstable Equilibrium: Report on the Tactics of the Russian Com mu nist Party” by V.I. Le nin, and “The World Eco nomic Crisis and the Tasks of Com- mu nists” by Leon Trotsky. These merit a few introduc- tory comments. In preparing the party’s 2002 convention, the SWP Na- 12NIl.indb 4 9/30/13 11:54:25 PM In this issue 5 tional Committee recognized that we were addressing a special challenge: Not only how to orient the party to act in face of the “long, hot winter” world capitalism has now entered, but how to lead it to act confidently and responsi- bly. When enough indications accumulate that the direc- tion of capitalist development, and thus the class strug gle, has shifted, communist workers must act on that knowl- edge, and act now. We do so even when concrete mani- festations of the unfolding political logic—accelerating financial and economic crises, increased militarization, spreading wars, intensifying interim pe ri al ist conflicts, and increasing so cial and economic pressures on a grow- ing majority of the working class—are still visible only in partial, scattered, and partly disguised ways. Once we understand the algebra, we need to act before it’s possible to do all the arithmetic. If, before act- ing, we wait until we can substitute constants for most political variables, it will be too late. In the midst of these changing conditions, we will have squandered opportunities to act as part of a small but recognizable emerging working-class resistance, to join with others in affecting its outcome and politicizing its militants, to learn from the experiences, and to transform the revolutionary workers movement in the process. What tools do worker-bolsheviks have at hand to better understand and act on today’s shifting long-run trends and the consequences for communist strategy and party building? It was with that question in mind at the 2002 convention that we called to delegates’ at- tention the reports by Le nin and Trotsky to the 1921 Com in tern congress. Those reports ended up sparking considerable interest both during and after the SWP convention, and the editors decided it would be useful to include them here. 12NIl.indb 5 9/30/13 11:54:25 PM 6 Jack Barnes The Bol she vik leaders’ analysis was developed in the heat of revolutionary activity, applying what they had in- ternalized from studying similar, earlier efforts by Karl Marx and Fred er ick Eng els, the founding leaders of the modern communist movement, to apply the materialist dialectic to turning points in history. Mastering this historical materialist method is necessary if we are to orient ourselves politically to such shifts. A revolutionary pro le tar ian party not only organizes its own members and supporters to act on the evidence of such changes and their logic; it takes responsibility for encouraging other class-strug gle-minded, fighting workers and farmers to do the same. Mil i tants won to this per- spective may occasionally overreach what the relationship of class forces allows. Such mistakes will be made. But we remain convinced by 150 years of revolutionary working- class history that the costs of political indecision and delay are far more dangerous and difficult to correct. Extracting lessons from Le nin and Trots ky’s analysis in the reports printed here is made more complex by the fact that the turning point vanguard workers act on today bears little resemblance to the concrete historical period more than eighty years ago during which the Bol- she viks were inspiring, educating, and leading millions in class combat. The Com mu nist In ter na tional, organized in 1919, was a product of the most exhilarating event of the twentieth century: the victorious conquest of power by the Bol she vik-led workers and peasants of Russia in Oc to ber 1917, and the extension of this power to large parts of the tsarist empire in Europe and Asia to become the first union of soviet so cialist republics. Working people worldwide were drawn to the possi- 12NIl.indb 6 9/30/13 11:54:25 PM In this issue 7 bility of learning from and emulating a living pro le tar- ian revolution and its leadership, which had shown for the first time ever how to educate and organize workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors to conquer—and defend— workers power. In March 1918, just four months after the conquest of power, the Bol she viks proudly took the name C o m m u n i s t . In doing so, they were signaling their unequivocal break with all elements of the world so cialist movement that, with the guns of August, either had politically gone over to imperialism, or had vacillated in face of the Sec ond I n t e r n a tional’s ca p i t u l a tory course. They were redou - bling their intransigent opposition to these “so cialists” who had ceased subordinating their lives and work to advancing the pro le tar ian strug gle. They were under- scoring the fact that the toilers of the expanding union of soviet so cialist republics were reknitting continuity with the revolutionary pro le tar ian world movement that Marx, Eng els, and their comrades—not only from Ger- many but from France, Bel gium, Swit zer land, and the United King dom—had begun building at the Lon don convention that in 1847 voted to issue the Man i festo of t h e C o m m u nist Party.

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