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Reforge the Fourth International April-May 1998 No. 5 $2 Internationalist Founding of the League for the Fourth International Reforge the Fourth International/ Leon Trotsky in Coyoacan, Mexico, 1939. © A.H . Buchman ICL vs. Trotsky on the Crisis of Leadership In Defense of the Transitional Program ..... 10 {\U§tralia $2.50, Brazil R$2, Sritain Documents of the Permanent .. Canada $2.50, France 10F, German··· Italy L3.000, Japan ¥200, Mexico$ Revolution Faction . .... 23-50 South Africa R5 2 The Internationalist April-May 1998 In this issue ... Special Issue of..Jk ~ This special issue of The Internationalist focuses on the foundation of Declaration of the League for the the League for the Fourth International and the political background to this Fourth International ........................ 3 important step in the struggle to reforge the world party of socialist revolu­ tion. The turbulent "post-Soviet period"-characterized by an economic and In Defense of the Transitional ideological offensive of the capitalist ruling classes, and sharp battles by the Program .......................................... 10 workers and oppressed in many countries-has disoriented and demoralized virtually the entire spectrum of left organizations internationally. Crisis in the ICL ................................ 16 The impact has not spared the tendency which for three decades fought to uphold the revolutionary program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky: the Inter­ national Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Reacting to the his­ Communism Lives! .......................... 23 toric defeat represented by the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, the ICL has drawn defeatist conclusions regarding the viability of Declaration of International Faction: communist intervention in the class struggle today. Permanent Revolution Faction ..... 16 In 1996 this led to the expulsion of leading cadres, who then formed the Internationalist Group (JG), and the desertion by the ICL leadership from an Once Again on the Permanent important class battle led by the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB) Revolution ...................................... 46 to throw cops out of the unions. Generalizing its centrist course, the ICL is now revising one fundamental Trotskyist position after another, on the popular front, Letter to the Comrades of the the nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy, permanent revolution and the central thesis,ofthe founding program of Trotsky's Fourth International, thatthe crisis International ................................... 47 of humanity is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership. Recently, the ICL expelled the Permanent Revolution Faction (PRF) in ICL Seeks to Sabotage Defense of France which waged a fight within the ICL against this growing revisionism. Brazilian Trotskyist Workers ......... 51 Upon its expulsion the PRF issued a statement declaring, "Communism Lives, in the Trotskyist Program and the Stroggles of the Workers and Oppressed!" ' CLC Bulletin No. 2 ............................ 56 Articles in this issue trace the political crisis that has intensified in the ICL, including key documents of the PRF. In early April, these comrades (now the CLC Bulletin No. 4: The Persecution Groupe Internationaliste) fused with the JG in the U.S. and Mexico and the LQB in Brazil to form the League for the Fourth International. Drawing key Continues ................................... 57 lessons from past struggles and fighting to bring the program of revolutionary Marxism into the class battles of today, the materials presented here are crucial Denounce Ninth Court Action reading for proletarian revolutionaries today. The League for the Fourth Inter- Against Brazilian Trotskyists ..... 62 . national dedicates its efforts to the fight for world socialist revolution to put an end to the capitalist system of exploitation, racism and war. Join us! Defend Iraq Against U.S. Imperialist Attack .......................................... 63 Visit the Internationalist Group on the Internet .., http://www. internationalist.erg CLC Resolution for Workers Action Against Now available on our site are: Imperialist Aggression ........................... 67 · • Founding Statement of the • Articles from The Internationalist Internationalist Group • Articles from Vanguards Operaria • Declaration of the League for • Articles from El lnternacionalista So How About El Salvador the Fourth International • Marxist readings Popular Front ............................. 69 SL Rejects Calls for Labor Strikes ~I; lnternationalst Against War Moves .................... 72 A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the Reforging of the Fourth International France: Racist State Terror from Publication of the Internationalist Group, World War II to Today ................. 80 section of the League for the Fourth International EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Abram Negrete, Buenaventura Santamarf a, Marjorie Salzburg; Socorro Valero. Front page photo: Leon Trotsky in The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, by Coyoacan, Mexico, 1939. Mundial Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] Subscription blank graphic based on a Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. poster by V.A. Rodchenko, Books (1925) No. 5 ®~ April-May 1998 April-May 1998 The Internationalist 3 The following declaration, "New World Order," slaughtering founding the league for the Fourth more than 100,000 Iraqis in the Per­ International, was adopted on 6 sian Gulf War. But the bourgeois April 1998 by the Internationalist triumphalism was short-lived. The Group (U.S. and Mexico), the liga capitalists' drive to slash wages and Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil social programs deemed unnecessary and the Groupe Internationaliste now that the "red menace" was gone (formerly the Permanent Revolution was met with outbreaks of working­ Faction), in France. class resistance in France, Italy, In 1848, at the outbreak of South Koreaandelsewhere. Peasant revolution in France, Germany and struggles broke out in Mexico and much of the Old Continent, the Brazil. In a series of countries, popu­ Communist Manifesto proclaimed: Jar front regimes have been insta11ed "A spectre is haunting Europe-the to impose brutal austerity where con­ spectre of Communism." Seventy servative governments have failed. years later, amidst the carnage of Yet even after proclaiming the first imperialist world war, the communism dead, the bourgeoisie Bolsheviks under VJ. Lenin and is still haunted by its spectre. To­ Leon Trotsky Jed a workers insur­ day, 150 years after the publication rection that took power in Russia. of the Communist Manifesto, a pro­ The workers soviets (councils) pro­ paganda blitz has been launched in claimed the goal of "the establish­ France with a Black Book ofCom­ ment of a socialist organization of munism, monstrously seeking to society and the victory of socialism blame Lenin's Bolsheviks for more in all countries." Faced with the in­ deaths than Hitler's Nazis. Their vasion of 14 imperialist armies, the purpose is to criminalize the Soviet power triumphed in the en­ struggle for socialist revolution. suing Civil War under the Red Army, organized by Leon But they will not succeed. What is dead is Stalinism, the very Trotsky. The battle cry "Workers of All Countries, Unite!" was antithesis of Leninist internationalism, while capitalism keeps expressed in the formation of the Communist International. producing potential communists around the world with the bru­ For workers in the capitalist West, for colonial slaves of impe­ tality of its exploitation and oppression. What is required is rialism, Red October showed the way to their own liberation. the intervention of the revolutionary party of the international But the defeat of the wave of post-World War I revolution­ proletariat. The central task is to build that party. ary struggles in Europe, along with the isolation and poverty of Today we announce the formation of the League for the the Soviet workers state, led to the rise of a conservative nation­ Fourth International, through the fusion of the Liga Quarta­ alist bureaucracy under Stalin, which usurped political power in Internacionalista do Brasil, the Internationalist Group in the 1923-24. Under the anti-Marxist watchword of building "social­ United States and Mexico, and the Permanent Revolution Fac­ ism in one country," this privileged layer sought a modus vivendi tion in France. As the PRF stated in its public declaration of3 with imperialism. This meant sabotaging revolutions abroad in February 1998: "Communism Lives, In the Struggles of the the name of a "popular front" with the bourgeoisie, while crush­ Workers and Oppressed and in the Trotskyist Program-Re­ ing workers democracy in the Soviet Union, murdering the au­ forge the Fourth International!" The task of the League for the thentic communists ofthe Left Opposition and the entire remain­ Fourth International is to cohere the nucleus for reforging the ing Bolshevik leadership of 1917. As Leon Trotsky insisted, de­ world party of socialist revolution on the communist program fense of the gains of October required proletarian political revo­ of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. lution to oust the parasitic bureaucracy, together with socialist Historical experience over the last century has driven home revolution in the capitalist West. Otherwise, the Stalinists' be­ the lesson that the question
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