A Congress of mutation...
THE 14TH WorLD CONGRESS OF THE FOURTH International took place on 5-10 June 1995. There were four major debates. The general discussion on the global situation organised around three themes — globalisation and the crisis of capitalism, the major political tendencies of the current period, and the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe. The second debate was an evaluation of the current situation and perspectives in Latin America, with special attention to the evolution of the Castrist regime in Cuba. The third debate covered the general tendencies of the socio-political situation in Western Europe, with special attention to the state of the left and the response to the European Union. The fourth and final debate concerned the strategies and problems of construction of revolutionary parties and an International in the new global period. Specific discussions, working group meetings and commissions covered feminist activities, youth work, ecology, solidarity campaigns with Bosnia and Chiapas (Mexico) and the Campaign to Abolish Third World Debt (COCAD). The Congress also examined and decided on a number of organisational problems concerning the status of various groups in various countries. Congress noted the division of the forces of the International in Germany and Mexico, and looked for ways to organise co-operation between the parties concerned. Mutation was a constant theme in the deliberations of the Congress: the Participants, delegates, guests and greetings The 150 participants included representatives of organisations and groups linked to the Intemational in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada/Quebec, Denmark, Equador, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg Morocco, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Senegal, South Africa, the Spanish State, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay and the USA.. Organisations and groups in Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Congo, Guadeloupe, the State of Israel, Jordan, Martinique and Maurius could not attend: many for Martinique and Mauritius could not attend: many for financial reasons, others because of visa problems. Among the guests were representatives of the Democratic Socialist Party of Australia, Gauches Unis (Belgium), Tri-Continental Centre (Belgium), the Workers' Party (Brazil), Solidarity (USA), Zutik (Basque country, Lutte ouvrière (France), People's : Communist Party (Philippines), MLCB (Philippines), Bisig (Philippines), Russian Party of Labour, Communist Refoundation (Italy) and the African Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) of Senegal. Among the written greetings to the conference were messages from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) branch in the occupied territories.
mutation of the world system atter the collapse of the Stalinist states of the exUSSR and eastern Europe, the mutations in the anti-capitalist left around the world, and of course the mutation of the Fourth International itself. The collapse of Stalinism and the continuing capitalist crisis (corresponding to the extension of the long wave of crisis which began in the 1970s) has contradictory effects. Myths and illusions connected to the restoration of capitalism in the post-Stalinist societies have dissipated, faced with the actually existing market economy. But reactions to the socio-economic crisis, in this period of loss of credibility of the socialist project, all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anticapitalist struggle, within the socialist perspective, taking account of the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result of the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism. The political disorder in the ranks of the anti-capitalist left, in the context of a global balance of forces dominated by imperialism, had resulted in many political, even ideological capitulations. But it has also led to a spectacular overcoming of the sectarian traditions generated by the existence of Stalinism which have taken root in the anti-capitalist left over the decades. Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries so large that it is legitimate to extrapolate a general tendency in the new period. This process can take a variety of forms. In some cases there are wide regroupments of anti-capitalist forces where the major element comes mainly (though not exclusively) from the decomposition of
Stalinism. In other cases, there are narrower re-groupments of tendencies which are based in the mutation under way inside the revolutionary left.
Sometimes this takes the form of the creation of new political formations organised on the basis of democratic pluralism, respecting the diversity of the component parts and their individual identities, yet founded on the basis of unified action and collective discipline, and acting both on the electoral level and in the field of general social and political struggles. In all the countries where one or the other of these possibilities exists, the organisations of the
Fourth International are ready to be part of the re-groupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the recomposition of the anticapitalist left on a world scale. At the international level, the Fourth
International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and
Stalinism. * Contents 5 Confronting Capitalist Globalization 11 Challenges of the new world situation 21 The political situation in imperialist Europe 37 Our tasks in imperialist Europe 41 The European Union 45 Latin America 55 The situation in Cuba 57 Building the International today
14th World Congress of the Fourth International 3
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