The Internationalist Fight for the Communism of Lenin and Trotsky Left Reformists in Existential Crisis ISO Implodes Documents from Left Oppositionists in Socialist Alternative and the International Marxist Tendency Leon Trotsky as commander of the Soviet Red Army, by Yuri Annenkov An Internationalist Group Pamphlet June 2019 3 € US$3 Labor donated In this pamphlet... IntroductionIn .................................................... this issue... 3 Section 1: SAlt Splinters, Order Now! ISO Implodes ............................ 5-14 Featuring articles by Left Reformists In Existential Crisis ............... 5 leading Bolshevik The ISO and “Socialism from Below” ........... 11 theorists Alexandra Kollontai, V.I. Lenin, Section 2: From Socialist Leon Trotsky, Clara Alternative to Trotskyism ....... 15-42 Zetkin and resolu- tions of the Commu- CSEL, Where We Come From and Where We Are Going .............................. 15 nist Internaitonal. CSEL, Open Letter to Socialist Alternative Oppositionists, Past and Present........... 19 US$3 (includes postage) CSEL Fuses with the IG ............................... 25 Revolutionary Marxism Is Based Order from/make checks payable to: Mundial Publications, on the Political Independence Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, New York of the Working Class ............................... 30 10008, U.S.A. Socialist Alternative Is No Place for Revolutionaries .................................. 32 Visit the League for the Fourth International/ Correspondence with the Internationalist Group on the Internet Freedom Socialist Party .....................35-41 http://www.internationalist.org SMG and MSG Fuse with RIY .................... 42 Now available on our site: Section 3: From the IMT to Declaration of the League for the Fourth International Trotskyism .............................. 44-59 Articles from The Internationalist Articles from Vanguarda Operária Marxist Politics Are Class Politics Articles from El Internacionalista and and Reply .................................................. 44 Revolución Permanente Articles from L’Internationaliste For a Real Political Discussion on Upholding Articles from L’ internazionalista Marxist Class Politics and Replies ............ 49 Articles in in German and Pilipino Marxist readings Letter to the Executive Committee and Area Committee and Reply ................................ 53 Visita la página del Grupo Internacionalista en Internet Letter of Resignation from the IMT ............ 58 Visite a página da Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil Section 4: Appendix .................. 60-82 Matérias de Vanguarda Operária A lutaluta parapara libertarlibertar MumiaMumia Abu-JamalAbu-Jamal Trotsky on Bourgeois Third Parties........... 60 Documentos marxistas sobre a luta pela libertação do negro e da mulher James P. Cannon on Third Parties ............. 61 “Socialist” Elected in Seattle on Platform The of Liberal/Populist Reforms .................... 62 Internationalist A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism Seattle’s “$15 Later” Law ........................... 66 for the Reforging of the Fourth International Bernie Sanders and the Pressure Publication of the Internationalist Group, Politics of the Opportunist Left .............. 67 U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International Yesterday’s “Obama Socialists,” EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Fred Bergen, Mark Lazarus, Abram Negrete, Marjorie Salzburg, Jay Wood, Ines Young Today’s Bernie Boosters ......................... 71 The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the by Mundial Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 Rescue of the Democratic Party ............. 76 E-mail: [email protected] Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. SAlt’s Sawant Backs Seattle’s Top Cop .... 82 1162-M June 2019 2 Introduction On one stage, Donald Trump ranted “America will never member of the DSA when it hopped on board her campaign.2 be a socialist country,” as he strutted and blustered his way A second, parallel phenomenon has been, quite literally, through last February’s State of the Union address. the existential crisis that a range of groups on the left have On another, backed by a sea of American flags, stood Ber- experienced in the recent period. nie Sanders, pitching his 2020 run for imperialist commander- It wasn’t supposed to be that way, many are no doubt tell- in-chief in a major campaign speech on June 12. ing themselves. Basking in the glow of “Sanders socialism” A full-throated paean to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sanders’ was supposed to help them grow and keep on growing. Every speech called to revive FDR’s New Deal. Along the way, he advance was breathlessly enthused over and cheered. While praised other Democratic icons, imperialist war criminals all: the several groups each had its own “tactical” prescription, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, the list supposed “theoretical” pretext and/or rhetorical nuance, they went on... “This is the unfinished business of the Democratic all boil down to this: Here is the bandwagon – Jump on! Party and the vision we must accomplish,” he proclaimed. What did “success” at the game of presenting Democratic Joined by much of the media and shamelessly cheered by sup- “progressivism” and bourgeois populism as supposedly some posed leftists, the senator from Vermont presented this call to kind of socialism mean for these sectors of the reformist left? It arms for imperialist liberalism as his “vision” of “democratic wound up cutting the ground out from under their feet. Posing socialism.” as “critical” fellow travelers of the DSA, while still claiming The “Democratic” part is patently true, as Sanders, New some distance, however slight, was a recipe for irrelevance. York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others As we have noted, the opportunism that was always the basis channel widespread discontent yet again into this, the world’s for these currents’ politics has meant making themselves more oldest capitalist party. As for those who help Sanders & Co. sell and more openly “Democratic” and less and less “socialist.” this sales pitch as having anything to do with “socialism,” they This above all is the political background to the dramatic crisis are brazenly deceiving the working class. “Democratic (Party) and collapse of left reformism which is taking place before socialism” is for the Democratic Party – and against everything our eyes. Rejecting the very concept of a class line in politics, Karl Marx meant by the word, as he and his comrades called today they are streaming into the DSA and the Democratic the workers of the world to unite for socialist revolution. Party outright. Subjugation to the Democratic Party of U.S. imperialism is What’s in The Pamphlet and has been for generations the central mechanism shackling the workers and oppressed to the capitalist ruling class and The present Internationalist Group pamphlet brings to- its state. This means chaining their power and binding them gether a range of materials. These include articles on burning to their exploiters, who are mortal enemies of the oppressed issues of Marxist politics today, analyses of the implosion of worldwide. Unchaining that power is more than ever a question “left” social-democratic tendencies and particularly documents of life and death today. To fight for socialism means fighting and correspondence from those who resisted and fought against for the political independence of the working class; fighting the liquidation into “Sanders socialism.” to overthrow capitalism and establish workers rule. Only this The first section analyzes the spectacular collapse and can lay the basis for a classless socialist society worldwide. formal dissolution this spring of the International Socialist Today in the U.S., forthrightly exposing and opposing the Organization, which not long ago styled itself the largest orga- political operation for the Democrats carried out by Sanders nization on the U.S. left. We take up the politics and practice and his supporters on the opportunist “left” is a crucial part of the ISO, which it summed up in the mantra of “socialism of this fight for working-class political independence, for a from below.” As we explain, this “Third Camp socialism” was break from all the bosses’ parties and forging a revolutionary fashioned by the likes of Max Shachtman, Hal Draper and workers party. Tony Cliff, who all broke from Trotskyism, soon embracing Cold War social democracy as increasingly open apologists The Background to This Pamphlet for imperialism. Along the way we comment on the centrist The recent growth of the “Sanders socialism” brand of evasions of Left Voice, the U.S. affiliate of the media project capitalist politics has brought with it two connected phenom- sponsored by the “Fracción Trotskista” led by the Argentine ena. One is the mushrooming of the Democratic Socialists of Partido de Trabajadores por el Socialismo.3 America as the biggest, most effective purveyors of “Demo- The second section is made up of materials from former cratic (Party) socialism.”1 Positioning themselves as the best, left oppositionists in Socialist Alternative (SAlt), most widely biggest builders of all-out Bernie boosterism, they attracted known for its “socialist city council member” Kshama Sawant large numbers of millennial youth shaped by the 2008 eco- 2 See “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez