after the 16th world congress of the united secretariat

8/9/2019 After the 16th World Congress of the United Secretariat

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[INTRO -- The article below is reprinted from Issue No. 68, June 2010 of LaVérité/The Truth, theoretical journal of the Fourth International. Other relatedarticles in this issue include "Degrowth and the United Secretariat" by LucienGauthier; "Woods-Goulart Claim: 'The Fourth International Will Not BeResuscitated!'", by Alfredo Luna; and "What Is the Bolivarian Alternative of the

Americas (ALBA)?" by Andreu Camps. To order a copy of this new andexception issue of our international journal, please send $5, includes postage, toSocialist Organizer, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140. Please makechecks payable to The Organizer. Many thanks. -- Alan B.]

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After the 16th World CongressOf the United Secretariat

By Dominique FerréThe Sixteenth World Congress of the United Secretariat (USec) (1) was held inBelgium in late February. The USec's previous world congress took place in2003. The balance-sheet of the recent world congress was drawn by SalvatoreCannavo in an article in the USec's review International Viewpoint (558-559,February-March 2010), under the heading: "The International becomes aperspective".

Let us start by asking a question: any worker, any youth has the right to ask arevolutionary organisation not only what it says, but also what it does.Now, Salvatore Cannavo is, together with Franco Turigliatto, the main leader of the USec's group in Italy. The names of Cannavo and Turigliatto are notunknown to the Italian workers. And with good reason. When they were part of the leadership of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), representing theSinistra Critica (Critical Left) current, Cannavo and Turigliatto were elected inMay 2006 as Deputy and Senator respectively, and served from 2006 to 2008



for the duration of the Prodi government, which was supported by all of the left-wing parties in Italy.

Thus, the author of the report to the USec world congress had been a Deputyfor two years. During the same period between the world congresses of 2003

and 2010, another USec group in Brazil participated in the Lula government.That an organisation which calls itself "revolutionary" should participate in thegovernment of one of the main dominated countries - Brazil - and support thebourgeois government of one of the top six imperialist powersŠ one could atleast expect that the world congress of that organisation would, at the very least,draw a balance-sheet of those experiences.

But nowhere in the report that was made is the question of Brazil or Italymentioned, even once.

Some delegates to the world congress had nevertheless asked for it. Thus, in acontribution to the preparation of the congress, the American group linked to theUSec, Socialist Action, wrote:

"In Italy, our participation in Communist Refoundation (RC) has been ademonstrated failure, with RC's continued rightward and unprincipled directionessentially compelling our comrades to leave. The RC experience included amajor error of political principle when a leading FI comrade [in other words

Turigliatto, a member of the USec leadership - La Vérité/The Truth] cast thedecisive vote (in a formal vote of confidence) in the Italian Parliament that keptthe coalition capitalist government in power."

Some extremely serious characterisations were made. But it must be noted thatSocialist Action's request for a debate on these questions received no reply fromthe USec congress.

The USec's balance-sheet in Italy

What was the balance-sheet of those two years during which Cannavo andTurigliatto held high office? (2)

Let us recall first of all that Berlusconi's defeat in May 2006 saw the introductionof a government produced by "l'Unione" (The Union), a vast electoral allianceregrouping several parties, from the Christian-Democrats to the CommunistRefoundation Party.



In the Senate, where the Prodi government could only count on a one-seatmajority, sat Senator Turigliatto, member of the leadership of both PRC andSinistra Critica, the USec's Italian section. As early as July 2006, Prodi decidedto organise a vote of confidence on the delicate question of war credits for theItalian troops in Afghanistan. Turigliatto of the Critical Left voted in favour of the

government, saving the Prodi government by the skin of its teeth and allowing itto send troops and weapons in support of the bloody occupation of Afghanistanby the United States.

Shortly afterwards, Rouge, the main publication of the French Pabloites,interviewed Senator Turigliatto, who said:"In 2006, I passed a vote of confidence in the Prodi government, in line with themandate I had been given and in relation to the programme of the Unionegovernment coalition, which at the time did not include the war without limits inAfghanistan or the expansion of the US base at Vincenza." (Rouge, issue

no.2195)

However - and Turigliatto knew this perfectly well - Prodi had posed the questionof a vote of confidence in his government in order to be able to send weaponsand troops to Afghanistan. That is what Turigliatto voted in favour of, and heknows it!

But had the Italian workers who elected Turigliatto voted in favour of continuingthe Italian participation in the military occupation of Afghanistan? Had they not

voted precisely in favour of the opposite?Turigliatto's voting decision was fully accepted by the USec leadership, in theSeptember 2006 issue of International Viewpoint , where a "member of theInternational Executive Bureau" wrote:

"Voting for the war credits. It was therefore decided to vote in favour, to take thegovernment representatives at their word - after announcing a 'change of mission perspective' out of sheer panic at the possibility of the governmentfalling - and to give Prodi another six months, since the funding of the 'missions'would have to be submitted to Parliament in December."

Yes, you read that right: give Prodi another six months ... so that he can sendItalian troops under NATO orders to massacre the Afghan people.

Is this anything other than direct support for the policy of US imperialism?

Cannavo and Turigliatto gave a vote of confidence in the Prodigovernment 23 times



We must point out here: it was not just once, but 23 times that Messrs Tuirgliattoand Cannavo gave a vote of confidence in the Prodi government! Not only didthey give a vote of confidence, but they also voted in favour of the laws andmeasures submitted to Parliament by Prodi, laws and measures derived directly

from the reactionary and anti-labour demands of the European Commission andapplied in a servile fashion by Prodi.For example, in December 2006 the Senate voted through a budget bill - withTurigliatto's support - which provided for: a 5 per cent cut in "labour costs", ¤3.5billion of cuts in the health budget (resulting in the introduction of a ¤25 chargefor all consultations in hospital emergency departments for deemed to be "non-vital"), the cutting of 50,000 teaching jobs, and a 13 per cent increase in militaryspending.This budget was immediately welcomed by the European Commission, whichstated: "The measures contained in the budget bill fit in with bringing down the

deficit to below 3 per cent in 2007." (La Repubblica, 13 December 2006)

The USec's Italian organisations gave this excuse: "Could anyone do anythingdifferent - vote against the budget bill, bring down the government, and pave theway for the return of Berlusconi?" (statement by Sinistra Critica, 18 December 2006)

What followed showed that this criminal policy of the leaderships of the "left"parties in Italy (with the active participation of Cannavo and Turigliatto) not only

resulted in the return of Berlusconi to power, but also to the disappearance fromparliament of all parties claiming to represent (even in words alone) theparticular interests of the workers!

Could anyone do anything different, asks the USec. Indeed, did not the workerswho voted to get rid of Berlusconi vote precisely for parties that would "dosomething different", something other than the anti-labour policies dictated byNATO and the European Union? Did they not vote against Berlusconi in order toput an end to privatisations, the public budget cuts, and so on? Is this not themandate they gave, especially to the Deputies and Senators of the PRC,

including of Sinistra Critica? Is this not what the Italian workers were demandingthe dozens of times they responded to the trade unions' call and went ongeneral strike?"Transcendance of capitalism"Not a single word, not a single resolution at the world congress on the questionof Italy and the support of not only Sinistra Critica but also the USec leadershipfor a government which, for two long years, implemented an anti-labour policy of submission to NATO, of submission to the European Union and the capitalists.



Not a single word either on the participation of Minister Rossetto in the Lulagovernment in Brazil, from 2002 to 2006, as "Minister for AgrarianDevelopment". Rossetto, leader of Socialist Democracy (DS), which then wasthe USec's section in Brazil, refused to take any step towards land reform,

dismissing both the landless peasants who were occupying the big estates andthe paid killers operating on behalf of the big landowners, without pronouncing infavour of either of them. (3)

Cannavo indicated his "conception of the International" in his article: "A bodybased on a program, a common perspective (the transcendence of capitalism),internal democracy, social effectiveness and absolute independence fromgovernments."

"Absolute independence from governments"? But between 2003 and 2010, the

United Secretariat directly participated in the Lula government in Brazil andsupported the Prodi government in Italy! "Left" governments which, each in itsown way, implemented a policy that went against the very things for which themasses had brought them to power.

And Cannavo calmly tells us that the conception of the International, accordingto the USec, is "absolute independence from governments"?

But is there not a link between that very particular conception of "absolute

independence from governments" and the concept of the "transcendence of capitalism" put forward by Cannavo?

Any worker interested in the Fourth International can note that it is founded on aprogramme which states that "the strategic task of the Fourth International liesnot in reforming capitalism but in its overthrow. Its political aim is the conquest of power by the proletariat for the purpose of expropriating the bourgeoisie." (4)

One will note that the expression used here is the "transcendence" of capitalismand not its "overthrow", not the expropriation of private ownership of the means

of production, which is at the heart of the Fourth International's programme (inthe continuity of the First, Second and Third Internationals).

This expression has a history. In the 1970s, it was adopted and popularised bythe leaders of the PCF, the French Stalinist party, as a way of giving (on behalf of the Kremlin's counter-revolutionary apparatus) even more proof of its defenceof the bourgeois order, by giving up - even verbally - any perspective of theworking class seizing power.



More recently, the PCF's secretary general wrote: "We want to transcendcapitalism. To achieve this objective, is not the question only posed in terms of seizing power? No. It is posed in terms of each individual becoming consciousand taking hold not only of his own destiny, but that of the collective, of society."

(Marie-George Buffet, "Un peu de courage" ["A little courage"], 2004)So we are supposed to give up, even verbally, the overthrow of the capitalistsystem, give up on the seizure of power by the working class (at the verymoment when the unsolvable crisis of the system based on private ownership of the means of production is threatening to drag the whole of humankind intobarbarism).

The USec's report to its world congress said the following on this point: "It isnecessary to impose a distribution of wealth that will put into question the logic

of profit, by regaining possession of those parts of added value that had beentaken by capital from the pockets of wage-earners over recent decades, bygiving priority to social needs, to employment, health, education, to a decentincome, to leisure - by proceeding with incursions into capitalist ownership."

As anyone can realise, as far as the USec is concerned, the question is one of "redistribution of wealth", of "incursions into capitalist ownership"Š but not of overthrowing the system, not of the collective appropriation of the means of production. Marx considered that the phrase "abolition of private property", of

private ownership of the means of production, summed up the programme of theCommunists and defined all other programmes (Manifesto of the CommunistParty, 1848). The USec is inviting us to follow it in a completely differentdirection.

So what did the USec's congress deal with?A "Russian section of the Fourth International"?

Cannavo wrote: "To recount the 16th congress of the Fourth International, wecould begin by speaking of the reconstitution of the Russian section of the

International, a kind of return to the sources: the Fourth International wasfounded at the initiative of Leon Trotsky in 1938, in the wake of the struggle anddefeat of the Left Opposition to Stalinism, destroyed in Russia during the 1920sand 1930s."

So a "Russian section of the International" is supposed to have been set up atthe world congress?



The Fourth International was founded in 1938, at a time of the biggest defeatsfor the proletariat: the triumph of fascism, the escalation towards world war, andthe installation in the Soviet Union of a bureaucratic parasitic layer which,through the Stalinist terror, had physically destroyed the Bolshevik Party in order to guarantee and extend its privileges - eating away at the workers' state like a

cancer.Maintaining the continuity of the Left Opposition, thousands of "Bolshevik-Leninist" militant activists of the Fourth International had lost their lives fightingagainst the bureaucratic Stalinist clique which, in the name of the so-calledtheory of "socialism in one country", was preparing the conditions for thecollapse of the USSR.

The Fourth International was set up on the basis of the programme of thepolitical revolution, in other words of calling on the Soviet workers, peasants and

youth to overthrow the bureaucratic clique as the only way of defending - andextending - the gains won through the revolution of October 1917.

Defending social ownership, the social relations imposed by October 1917 onthe basis of expropriating capital, against the bureaucracy that, sooner or later,would seek to re-establish capitalism in order to transform its privileges intoprivate property: this lies at the heart of the struggle for the political revolution.

Of course, the struggle for the political revolution is no longer posed in the same

conditions after 1991. That year, the bureaucracy destroyed the Soviet Unionand, in an unprecedented offensive of pillage and privatisation, dismemberedstate property for the benefit of international capital. But the continuity of thestruggle for the political revolution after 1991 is embodied in the fight to win backthe gains of October 1917 (and the defence of the segments of those gains thathave been saved).

But what is the characteristic of the VPERED group, which participated in theUSec's world congress and was proclaimed the "Russian section of the FourthInternational"?

The political characteristic of the leaders of the VPERED group is that over recent months in Russia, they have fought against the demand for therenationalisation of those state enterprises that had been privatised and pillagedby the bureaucracy.

On its website, the VPERED Socialist Movement thus states that "the questionof whether or not the enterprises will be nationalised is not the key question. The



counterposition private ownership-state ownership is, in modern-day Russia, toa large extent a false one".

According to the Director of Russian Studies at the American EnterpriseInstitute, last year in Russia "production fell by almost 20 percent - a rate of

decrease unseen since 1941 and 1942, the years of the Nazi onslaught." Headded that the collapse of the company towns "could catalyze a nationwideexplosion of political turmoil", as "a quarter of the urban population - 25 millionpeople - live in monotowns and produce up to 40 percent of Russia's GDP". (5)

As the International Herald Tribune says, within the framework of the worldcapitalist market in full crisis, these single-industry towns are condemned todeath. And we should not pose the problem of renationalising them?Should we fight for renationalisation or not?

VPERED writes: "State ownership in Russia is a particular form of privateownership."

But if there is no difference, then the workers were wrong to oppose theprivatisation programme.

If there is no difference, then it would be a mistake to fight against the newprivatisations announced by the governments in Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldavia,etc. To give just one example: which railworker in Russia can believe that his/her

situation will not change if the RGD (Russian Railways, a company still ownedby the state) is privatised?

It is a fact: the economic, social and cultural collapse of the republics of theformer USSR is the result of the privatisations carried out by Gorbachev, Yeltsin,Voronin, Nazarbaev, etc., who were all produced by the bureaucracy and thenreconverted, after 1991, to the "market economy".

The Soviet working class was constituted within the framework of the socialrelations introduced in October 1917 (state enterprises, social gains, etc.). Its

survival, one could say, "depends" on maintaining the state enterprises and allthe guarantees linked to those enterprises (housing, health clinics, canteens,kindergartens, schools, etc.).

Not fighting for nationalisation (in other words to win back the gains of October 1917) in fact means accompanying the veritable genocide that is threatening theworking class in the former USSR.Should we pose this problem?



Or should we say, as VPERED says in its website, that "nationalisation is not thekey question", because "what is really more important is to be found elsewhere:can the workers exercise control over the management decisions in their enterprises, or not? Which leads us to the most important of questions: the role

and place of the workers' organ in the enterprise, that is the trade unions."In a polemic against this position, the newspaper Rabochie Izvestiya (6) said inan article:

"Is this the role of the trade unions? The independent trade unions were set upto exclusively defend the particular interests of the workers. To involve them inthe managing of the enterprises would mean nothing other than integrating theminto the management of the enterprises, therefore chaining them to managingprivatisations, organising plans for job-cuts, organising cuts in wagesŠ Do wenot have, in the upper levels of the FNPR (7) in Russia, a striking example of

what a 'trade union' that is integrated into the enterprise management reallymeans? No, it was in all honesty that a small vanguard of a few thousandworkers began to open the perspective of winning back state ownership. Andthat struggle requires that the working class has at its disposal its ownorganisations, beginning with independent trade unions. This is why our newspaper included in its platform the fight for renationalisation, againstprivatisation, and for winning back the gains of October 1917."

For not only are the leaders of VPERED fiercely opposed to the slogan of

"renationalisation", they explain:"For the ideas of opposition that are sprouting in Russia to be able to beexpressed, it is important for the population to understand that it must not besatisfied with just thinking, that it can also act. Indeed, currently, Russian societyis completely unaware of the effect its actions can have on the government'smoves, and the way in which it can change the course of things." (8)The relevance of the struggle for political revolution

What contempt for the Russian working class! It is supposedly reduced to apassive mass stripped of all consciousness. Since August 2007 (and especially

since the strike at the giant AvtoVaz auto factory in Togliatti on 1 August 2007,when over 800 workers stopped work for a few hours in response to a call bythe Edinstvo independent trade union - which was then operating underground -despite the preventative arrest of activists), Russia has witnessed what onenewspaper scornfully called at the time "the fashion for strikes".

Hundreds, thousands of strikes have affected factories, not only in Russia, butmore recently in Ukraine, Moldavia and Kazakhstan. Small groups of



independent trade unions have been formed - often underground - decimated byrepression and then tirelessly reformed. Tens and hundreds of thousands of workers have surged into a movement making demands for the payment of back-pay and against the winding-up of enterprises and job-cuts. Also - eventhough this only applies to a few dozen enterprises - the demand for the

"renationalisation" of enterprises has begun to be heard. A demand that wasformulated in particular by several thousand AvtoVaz workers in August andOctober 2009, but also by strikers at the coach-repair factory in Alma Ata, or bystrikers in the Janaozen coalmines (Kazakhstan), the KhMZ factory in Kherson(Ukraine) and the "Moldcarton" and "Glodeni Zahar" factories in Moldavia.

The appearance of this slogan is also a confirmation of the correctness of thestruggle of the Fourth International for the political revolution.

For their own survival, gradually rebuilding their own class struggle, the workers

of the former USSR have been led to formulate this slogan which - for us -totally confirms that, even 20 years after the destruction of the USSR, the "gainsof October live on in the consciousness of the masses", quite simply becausethe masses have no other choice than to win them back in order to survive.

This is not the policy of the USec or the VPERED group, which fiercely opposethe slogan of "renationalisation".

From this point of view, the USec is fully in line with its own continuity. Just after

the destruction of the USSR, all of the labour movement leaderships (ex-Stalinists, social democrats) used this pretext to claim that the "fall" of the USSRwas due to the superiority of capitalism, launching an unprecedented ideologicaloffensive to justify their own submission to the capitalist system.At the same time, the "Programmatic Manifesto" adopted by the USec's worldcongress in 1992 stated that the "capitalist system Š seems less contested as awhole than it has been for decades. The idea that it has definitively won over asocialism that is falsely identified with the societies under bureaucraticdomination in the USSR and Eastern Europe is widespread. This is above alldue to the crisis of credibility of socialism."

It then expanded on that so-called crisis of credibility of socialism - a socialismthat it identified, more or less, with the Stalinist bureaucracy.

From this point of view, the USec's world congress in February 2010 is fully inline with the continuity of the last 20 years, from now on openly calling for the"transcendence of capitalism". All reference to the expropriation of capital, to theperspective of the seizure of power by the working class, must be excluded,



even from statements, in favour of the "redistribution of wealth".The reader will see in this issue of La Vérité/The Truth a contribution bycomrade Lucien Gauthier, who demonstrates the way in which the texts adoptedby the USec world congress on "climate change" fall within the framework of theultra-reactionary ideology of "de-growth".

"Self-management", the USec's response to the crisis

It is true that the VPERED group has not invented anything. The samerapporteur at the USec word congress who called for the "transcendence of capitalism" and "incursions into capitalist ownership" stated:

"In a series of sectors affected by the crisis, there have been - such as inArgentina or Venezuela - experiments in worker control, of boosting production,of managing the enterprises. Those experiments must be popularised."

The so-called experiments in "self-management", of workers "taking back"enterprises that had been liquidated by the capitalists, have ended incatastrophe.

In Argentina, where following the revolutionary wave of 2000-1, various so-called "extreme left" currents promoted a movement of "self-managed" factories,the balance-sheet is irrevocably clear.In a 2009 interview on that movement, a worker in Argentina (who does not

share our opinion on "self-management" in the factories) at the Zanon tilefactory, which had been "self-managed" since 2001, gave this explanation:"Many occupied factories have not been able to survive. Unfortunately, wecannot escape the rules of the neo-liberal market system, since if we do notsucceed in selling the government 100,000 metres of tiling per month, wecannot survive."

Yes, it is difficult to escape the "laws" of the market.

A real dead-end that puts onto the shoulders of the workers - who have now

become their own "bosses" - the responsibility which lies with the leaders of thelabour movement.

On the one hand, the workers are invited to "self-manage" their factory - in other words, to achieve "socialism in one factory".

On the other, the leaders of the labour movement are cleared of anyresponsibility, after having a long time ago given up fighting for the



nationalisation and renationalisation of those enterprises, for a ban on job-cuts,in other words for a government that would take the basic measures needed tosave working people, by expropriating the capitalists who are incapable of guaranteeing production.

The only conclusion the Argentinean worker (who, let us repeat, does not shareour opinion on "self-management" in the factories) can draw is to recognise that:

"We also need state control, so that the state can market our products and inthat way make the factory serve the community, so that the state can build thehousing the people need. We are therefore calling for a plan of public works,because in Neuquén they are short of 60,000 housing units for which we aregoing to supply the tiles. At the same time, we will demand of the state that itguarantees our wages, because today with the crisis, the factory's productionand sales have fallen considerably."

This veritable trap of "self-management" set for the workers, who are facing anunprecedented wave of job-cuts and deindustrialisation, has become a leitmotif for the USec's policy in every country.

Thus, Mr Cannavo's own organisation concentrated its campaign for thelegislative elections in Italy on 28 and 29 March on the demand for "the self-management of factories in crisis".This in order to oppose the slogan of banning job-cuts, which is the only way toopen a perspective of unity for the workers and their organisations to save their

factories, to save their jobs."Self-management" as opposed to the class struggle

This policy has been developed by the USec in all parts of the world. In France,the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), which for months rejected the calls by theIndependent Workers Party (POI, in which militant activists of the French sectionof the Fourth International are active) to organise a united march for a ban on

job-cuts, still counterposes to this perspective the so-called solution of self-management.

In January 2010, the NPA wrote the following about the Philips factory in Dreux,which was threatened with closure by the multinational: "By taking control of their enterprise, the Philips EGP employees, like those at LIP in the 1970s, areopening a new phase in their fight to defend jobs in Dreux. The NPA totallysupports the decision by the Philips EGP employees to re-open their factoryunder their own control."

On 13 January, the NPA added: "Through their action, the employees are



showing that they do not need anyone in order to produce."

In reality, the Philips workers in no way sought to "imitate" the disastrousexperiment at LIP, which in the 1970s led to the bankruptcy of the watch andclock company after a few months of "self-management" (at the time with the

complete support of the Communist League, then the section of the UnitedSecretariat). The fact is that in Dreux, as in hundreds of other factories, whenthe workers were threatened with closure and received an "offer" from thecorporation's management to move to Hungary and work for 450 euros (aboutUS$560) per month, they tried to use their trade union organisations to imposeunity for "Not one job-cut".In the mass-meeting that followed the tribunal decision to overturn the decisionto close down the factory, POI activists who had instigated such a meeting,stated:

"Nationalisation is the only way of guaranteeing jobs. This debt is not ours.Cancel all plans to cut jobs. Hands off our pensions!

"These simple and obvious things are what unity should be based on.Management is boasting about having held 16 social dialogue meetings: but wecan no more agree to a single job-cut, a single lay-off, whether they have onesocial dialogue meeting or 16 social dialogue meetings. The same goes for pensions: who can agree to discuss a schedule, its duration or decision dates?

"What has just happened at Philips is not the result of debate-consensus. It isthe result of a united fight for the withdrawal of the plan, its cancellation. On theslogan of a ban on job-cuts, of withdrawal of the redundancies plan at Philipslike everywhere else, on the question of pensions, we can come together.

"The owner of Philips has just published a press statement, saying: 'We note thetribunal's decision. Production will resume on Monday.' Looking beyond the legalprocess, this is about the class struggle. This shows the capacity of the workingclass to unite, even if at the level of just one factory.

"There is no reason to agree to consensus in the industry conventions, just asthere is no reason to agree to discuss a schedule for the so-called reform of thepensions scheme! Hands off our pensions, ban all job-cuts, and that's it: that isthe basis for unity!

"They have talked about proposals for transfers to Hungary in order to play onthe sensational aspect. That forms part of the transfer obligations provided for under the Labour Code. In fact, Sarkozy wants to smash the right to a job. We



must say clearly: what is scandalous is not that a French person is sent toHungary to earn 450 euros a month; what is scandalous is that a Hungarianworker only earns 450 euros."

The return of "self-management" as flavour of the month (even when it is

dressed up as "workers' control") amounts to covering for giving up the fight tooverthrow the system based on private ownership of the means of production.That is the fundamental difference between the Fourth International and thePabloite Usec.

Fourth or Fifth International?

It is on the basis of these particularly reactionary positions that we must addressthe key question posed in the USec's recent congress: What reply to give to theproposal by Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez, to set up a "Fifth Socialist

International"?

That call by Chavez (9) represented an attempt to loosen the vice with which USimperialism is seeking to strangle Venezuela. At the same time, the call is notlocated in the labour movement, does not form part of the continuity of the First,Second, Third and Fourth Internationals, which all included as one of their founding principles the independence of the working class with the aim of overthrowing the system based on private ownership of the means of production.

Let us recall the "principles" on which Chavez is calling for the setting up of a"Fifth International", as stated in the official documents of Chavez's party, thePSUV:

"The International Meeting of Left-wing Political Parties held in Caracas onNovember 19, 20 and 21, 2009, having received the proposal made byCommander Hugo Chavez Frias to convoke the Fifth Socialist International as abody for socialist parties and currents and social movements of the whole world,in which we can harmonise a common strategy for the struggle against

imperialism, transcend capitalism for socialism and solidarity-based economicintegration of a new type, resolves to endorse the said proposal in the light of itshistoric dimension which proposes a new spirit of internationalism."As one can see, here again it is a question of "transcending capitalism" and notoverthrowing it. It is also a question of promoting "solidarity-based economicintegration of a new type". The reader will see in this issue of La Vérité/TheTruth a file on the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), to which thisphrase refers, and which does not put into question the system of private



ownership.

Behind the apparently enthusiastic response by the USec leadership toChavez's proposal, it appears that things are a bit more complicated, as far asthe USec is concerned. A journalist who was officially invited to attend the USec

world congress gave the following report:"The embarrassing proposal by Chavez to build a Fifth International: theEuropeans are not very keen, the Latinos are much more enthusiastic."

On the other hand, the journalist informs us, the USec congress was muchtaken by the idea of defining the USec "as an Anti-capitalist International. Thissecond French proposal is undoubtedly designed to allow the NPA to join, but itraises a mass of problems."

"Chavez's embarrassing proposal"

The USec's "official" position is to welcome the proposal for a "FifthInternational" with a more-than-limited enthusiasm. Cannavo thus writes inInternational Viewpoint that it is a question of "respond[ing] now to currentchallenges, such as the possible convening by the Venezuelan Government of adebate for a Fifth international. The propagandist nature of this proposal and thecomplexity of an invitation from a head of government escaped nobody. At thesame time, and this has been stressed repeatedly, the hypothesis gives new

credibility and a new visibility to the conception of the International, the fact thatthis dimension is crucial to confront capitalist globalisation and its crisis."For his part, USec leader Eric Toussaint describes the concept this "FifthInternational" should have: "But in my opinion, it would not be an organisationlike the previous Internationals were - or still are, since the Fourth Internationalstill exists - that is to say, party organisations with a fairly high level of centralization. In my view, the Fifth International should not be highly centralisedand it should not require the self-dissolution of international networks or of anorganisation like the Fourth International. They could join the Fifth Internationaland still keep their own specifics, but their membership would demonstrate that

all the networks or major movements are determined to go further than thepresent ad hoc coalitions on climate or social justice, food sovereignty, the debt,etc. We have common causes among many networks and that's a positive thing.But if we could successfully form a permanent front, it would be better still. Theterm 'front' is a key word in defining the Fifth International. For me, the FifthInternational would be, in the present situation, a permanent front of parties,social movements and international networks." (10)



In short, according to the USec leadership, the "Fifth International" could besomething which in the end would very much resemble the "social forums". Thiswould be even more desirable, since those same USec leaders, havingpreviously been the most enthusiastic of supporters and co-organisers of the"social forums", now consider them to "no longer be a success". And for good

reason: they can now openly be seen for what they always were: gatherings to"protest" against capitalismŠfinanced by the capitalists themselves. EricToussaint, who heads the NGO "Committee for the Abolition of Third WorldDebt" (CADTM) and as such has been a member of the "International Council of the World Social Forum" since 2001, indicates that "it worries me to arrive inPorto Alegre and see that the seminar 'Ten years later' is sponsored byPetrobras, Caixa, Banco do Brasil, Itaipu Binacional (11), with severalgovernments in attendance. This really worries me. I would much rather haveseen a Forum with less financial means but more militant in nature."

As a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum since 2001,Eric Toussaint knows perfectly well that the funding of the social forums hasalways benefited from the generosity of big multinational companies, not tomention governments and international institutions like the IMF, the EuropeanUnion or the World Bank. But there you go - this seems a bit too much now, andthe initial spark seems to be missing from their meetings now. (12) So they needto move on. A "Fifth International" that would be a new avatar of the socialforums would therefore perfectly suit the USec's leaders. But that is not exactlywhat Chavez expects from his "Fifth International". Hence the embarrassment of

the USec leadership. (13)The line of "new anti-capitalist parties" during the PSOL's crisis

Because for the USec leaders, the major axis remains "the birth of the New Anti-capitalist Party in France, regardless of its contradictions and its growing pains,constituting the main novelty of European politics".

Cannavo points out: "The political process that must be watched carefully is theconstruction of 'new anti-capitalist parties', broad and with a mass influences,

including 'the current response to the crisis of the workers' movement and thenecessity of its reconstruction'."

As luck would have it, the world congress took place at the same time that twoparties being promoted by the USec leadership to illustrate that orientation - theNPA, formed in France in June 2008, and the Party of Socialism and Liberty(PSOL) in Brazil - were sinking into a deep crisis.



In Brazil, the PSOL has just blown apart, six years after its foundation. Twoseparate meetings took place in Rio de Janeiro (10 April 2010) instead of thepre-election national conference called to pick the PSOL candidate for theOctober 2010 presidential election.On one side, there is Heloisa Helena, deposed PSOL leader, former Workers

Party (PT) senator (while a member of Socialist Democracy (DS), the thenBrazilian section of the Pabloite United Secretariat), allied with Deputy LucianaGenro, who support Martiniano Cavalcante as the PSOL presidential candidate.But we should say that this is more of a "fantasy" candidate than anything else,since in reality Heloisa Helena supports the candidacy of Lula's former Minister of the Environment and now Green Party member, Marina Silva. In return, thelatter is supporting Heloisa Helena in her bid for the senator's seat in her state.The Green Party has a fashionably "environmental" way of talking, but in fact isa subsidiary of the bourgeois party of former President Fernando HenriqueCardoso (kicked out of power in 2002 by the vote for the Workers Party).

On the other side, the "rival" conference brought together Enlace (the currentsection of the Pabloite USec), the group of former Deputy Baba and all thosewho support Plinio Sampaio to represent the PSOL in the presidential election. If there is no "legal separation" between the two opponent wings of the party, it isonly because Brazilian law obliges election candidates to stand under the sameparty label for the whole of the current year. But open warfare has beendeclared, with accusations from both sides of "fraud" and "gangsterism", in ageneral climate of demoralisation for numerous activists who broke with the PT

on the grounds of needing to create an "ethical" and "radical" party. This latter excuse has also fallen victim to experience. The weekly newspaper Brasil deFato, which defends the PSOL's arguments, recorded (6 April 2010) the point of agreement between Plinio and Martiniano: "Socialism is not on the agenda, weneed to fight for radicalisation and democracy."

Which is a similar programme to that of the PT leadership.

In point of fact, the PSOL has succeeded in reproducing all of the PT's faults,without a single one of its qualities (a mass grass-roots, link with the main labour

and popular organisations, etc.). The ongoing split in the PSOL is asupplementary chapter in the story of the decay of the USec's Brazilian section,currently known by the name of Enlace, which bears enormous responsibility for the demoralisation and dispersion of cadres and activists trained in the PT'sschool of the class struggle.

Socialist Democracy, whose members included future officers of Enlace,participated in the Lula government from 2002 onwards. A shameful role was



played by Lula's Minister for Agrarian Development Miguel Rossetto, a member of Socialist Democracy, who always rejected land reform and covered for themurder of landless peasants by killers hired by the big landowners. That policy,for which a balance-sheet has never been drawn, neither at the USec's worldcongress in 2003 nor at its 2010 world congress, resulted in the DS's decay and

break-up. A minority has remained in the USec under the name of Enlace.When she was a DS member, Heloisa Helena had raised huge hopes when, asa PT Deputy, she had refused to vote for the counter-reform of the pensionssystem during Lula's first term. But the USec's policy (covering Rossetto'sparticipation in the government) pushed her to give up the fight within the PT,including against her own expulsion from the PT. The USec pushed her intoembarking on the adventure of a "new party" - which has led today to her running after the "green" candidacy of Marina Silva, breaking with Enlace.

At its last congress in February 2010, Enlace was for an initial period

enthusiastic about Marina Silva's candidature, presented in a resolution as an"environmental and social alternative" (part of the continuity of the USec's"ecosocialist" line), and whose platform concentrates on the "democratisation of political power".

... and the NPA's crisis

This crisis in Brazil coincided with that of the NPA in France, following theregional elections of 14 March 2010. An Agence France Presse (AFP) report (9

April 2010) said that "around 10 per cent of the NPA's National Political Council(CPN) recently resigned from their posts, half of them also quitting the party,according to the NPA leadership, which at the same time is denying any "suddendrop" in its membership (8,000). Out of 191 members of the NPA's CPN, "18departures were noted" after the regional elections, often over questions of "political differences", and "around half of them" have also quit the party, NPAExecutive Committee member Ingrid Hayes announced on Friday, when askedby AFP. "We are sticking with our estimate of 8,000 members", there is no"sudden drop", she maintained, at the same time recognising "the difficulty inmeasuring exactly the scope of the departures". "A number of people are waiting

for the congress [11-14 November - Editor] before making a decision", sheexplained."

On the other hand, the NPA leader indicated that the NPA is in "a complicatedsituation from a financial point of view".

And with good reason. The leaders of the "Convergence and Alternative"current, representing almost one-third of the NPA, signed an appeal just before



these statements were made, accompanied by "political figures" like PatrickBraouezec, calling for a "national conference of a front for social transformationopen to the whole of the left, for joint political formulation and action in socialstruggles such as the next elections". Patrick Braouezec, former mayor of Saint-Denis (near Paris) and former member of the leadership of the French

Communist Party (PCF), is known for having dramatically resigned from hisparty a few weeks ago, calling on PCF members to resign from the party enmasse. He is playing a full part in the ongoing offensive against politicaldemocracy, by questioning "the traditional form" of the parties rather thancontesting the PCF's real political orientation. Moreover, the appeal launched byBraouezec and the leaders of the NPA's main tendency declares itself in favour of putting an end to "party political logic".

On the other hand, on 7 April, the "globe-reshaper" Raoul-Marc Jennar, one of the NPA's main leaders - who had been given prominence by the leadership

because he had not been a member of the LCR - published his resignationletter, which said:

"I have no choice but to note the defeat of the NPA project. The resolutionadopted at the end of the CPN meeting on 27 and 28 March is irrevocable: Point8 in that resolution confirms an unchanged political line: that of a solitaryapproach by a vanguard that acts in line with the sectarian tradition of a factionof the extreme left."

He also declared his opposition to the "party religion that holds sway in all thegroupings", adding that "the time has come to ask oneself about the "party" form(which dates from the 19th century) for political action."

To understand the reasons for this crisis, it is necessary to look back at theregional elections of 14 March 2010, during which the working class expressedthrough a massive abstention (55 per cent) its total rejection of all of theinstitutional political forms of representation. An abstention whose class contentleaves no doubt (69 per cent of blue-collar and 64 per cent of white-collar workers abstained) and which expresses the workers' rejection of the

"consensus" between the Sarkozy government and the "left" parties (SocialistParty, Communist Party) that are managing the policies of Sarkozy and theEuropean Union in the regional councils. The Independent Workers Party (POI),within which the militant activists of the French section of the FourthInternational are active, had chosen - purely from a tactical point of view - not tostand candidates in the regional elections, concentrating its efforts on a politicalcampaign against "consensus" between the government and the leaderships of the labour movement that aims to impose the "pension reform" demanded by



the European Union and finance capital.

"Abstention serves the government's policy"

A deeply divided NPA stood lists of its own candidates in certain regions and

joint lists in others within the framework of an alliance (called the "Left Front")with the Communist Party. While all the commentators had been announcing for months that there would be a massive abstention to express rejection, the NPAran an extremely reactionary and election-focused campaign, with its mainleaders coming out with more and more statements like: "Our main competitionis abstention" (Olivier Besancenot on the TF1 TV channel, 5 March).One NPA candidate heading an electoral list went as far as accusing abstainersof being responsible for the policies of Sarkozy and the Socialist Party leaders,saying: "Abstention ... serves the policy of the UMP government and the SP,which in the provinces has greatly increased subsidies to enterprises and is

accompanying a capitalist system that we are fighting against". (11 March, LaDépêche du Midi )

In one département (14), the NPA stated: "Abstention only serves those partiestaking turns in power and which precisely bear the responsibility for the situationthat the popular classes are in. Abstaining in order to protest is in fact justanother way of resigning oneself to it". (NPA 31, 12 March)

The NPA leaders went a long way in expressing nothing other than a policy of

accompanying the government's anti-labour policy within the framework of theregional councils. Thus, in a whole series of regions, the electoral lists featuringthe NPA openly called for a programme of "aid to the enterprises" (under thepretext of being able to monitor it or impose conditions), in other words aid to thecapitalists. In Burgundy, the profession of faith demanded that "aid toenterprises will come under a regional public fund for employment, under thecontrol of a commission composed mostly of trade unionists, experts andcitizens".

In the Pays de Loire region: "No aid of any kind to enterprises that do not

respect a terms of reference that is both social (employment, insecure jobs),environmental (conditions of production and transportation) and democratic(monitoring of accounts, employees having a veto)."

In the same region, a joint platform signed by the NPA, the Stalinist party andvarious "de-growth" groups called for the "development of 'soft' modes of transport (bicycles, going on foot)". The workers who have been thrown out of their factories by an unprecedented wave of job-cuts (several hundreds of



thousands in 2009) will appreciate that!The NPA systematically painted a rosy picture of the role of the regionalcouncils, ascribing to them virtues that nobody knew they had. Thus, an NPAleaflet published for 8 March claimed: "The region can be a leverage-point for defending women's rights. It could offer its help in the fight against discrimination

, [it] could also create a regional public service for professional training thatwould tackle gender inequalities, especially by favouring the mixing of the sexesin the courses."

In France, an offensive has been waged in the name of "regionalisation" for thelast 20 years against the unity of the Republic and the nation, within theframework of which the working class has constituted itself through itsorganisations and its gains. The POI statement dealing with the election resultssaid on this point:"On 14 March also saw expressed the rejection of the whole architecture of

regionalisation put in place over decades within the framework of the institutionsof the Fifth Republic and the 'Europe of the Regions'. 'Led by us, the regions areand will be a social shield, protection for the population', the leaders of theSocialist Party and their allies said. The fact is that although those partiespartially benefited from the vote against the government, regionalisation did notappear in the eyes of the workers and the population as a response to their expectations. Quite the contrary! The dismantling of rights, region by region,within the framework of sharing out the roles between a central government andthe regions, both implementing the same directives of the European Union:

working people want nothing of that."While continuing to denounce in words the leadership of the Socialist Party(which heads 20 out of 22 regions), the NPA was also part of the framework of regional "good management".Such arguments apparently did not convince millions of voters - especiallyamong the working class - who abstained despite the incessant appeals fromthe NPA to go to the polls. ... The NPA leadership, which continuously declaredthat it had set itself the target of getting more than 5 per cent of the vote, wasforced to note that its results (less than 3 per cent) "were not good", with the

"Convergence and Alternative" current, representing one-third of theorganisation, denouncing "the NPA's position, which had been disowned". Thecrisis is even deeper due to the fact that, while condemning the Socialist Partyleadership's management, the NPA leadership had announced months ago thatit envisaged "democratic fusions" between its lists and those of the SocialistParty, allowing it to get seats on the councils.

Thus, as early as 18 February, the NPA leadership was saying: "We have



always said that we were ready to be part of executive bodies that carried outpolicies that were heading in the right direction Š . One could envisage, after thefirst round, a democratic alliance, in which the emerging majority accepts theproportionality of the votes obtained. More or less, the SP should prefer having acritical partner to its left rather than lose votes and eventually lose the region to

the right."Having failed to gather the 5 per cent of votes needed to make this kind of agreement, the NPA leadership nevertheless called on the evening of 14 Marchfor a vote in favour of the SP-led Union of the Left lists (which it had denouncedthroughout the campaign for "accompanying the capitalism system we arefighting against"). A big and continuous gap between very radical-sounding talkand offers of service to the "popular front" within the framework of good regionalgovernance.This "New Anti-capitalist Party" in decay is the "model" held up at the heart of its

world congress by the USec leadership. Can such a policy (which, as one willagree, has nothing to do with the Fourth International - while at the same timeclaiming to represent it) result in anything other than demoralisation anddecomposition?------

ENDNOTES (1) Let us recall where the United Secretariat came from:

"It was in the conditions of the so-called "Cold War" - a period referred to byeveryone as one of confrontation between the Soviet and American "blocs" -that an orientation which went against the programme of the Fourth Internationalwas developed within the Fourth International itself, encouraged by itsleadership (Michel Pablo). In a situation marked by the risk of a Third World War,the USA-USSR confrontation, Pablo developed the following idea: the Stalinistbureaucracy is forced to move "to the left", it finds itself in a position - during"centuries of transition" - of being obliged to achieve "socialism", but of course in

a bureaucratic manner, he consents to point out! The conclusion drawn from thisby the leadership of the Fourth International was that the International shouldmerge into the Stalinist parties in order to reinforce that supposed move to theleft. Such a position on the one hand substituted the struggle between (Stalinistand imperialist) blocs for the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie;and on the other hand, it led to the liquidation of the Fourth International. Themajority of the French section, which fought against this orientation, wasbureaucratically expelled. This is the root-cause of the split with the "Pabloite"



current, which broke with Trotskyism." ("The 20th Century in 20 Chapters", aneducational pamphlet of the French section of the Fourth International).

The destruction of the USSR in 1991, for which the Stalinist bureaucracy bearscomplete responsibility, settled once and for all the "thesis" according to whichthe bureaucracy was going to "achieve socialism sui generis". But the Pabloitegroup (United Secretariat) maintained itself after 1991, merging into the NGOsand the "social forums", while at the same time continuing to claim to representthe Fourth International. This grouping is represented especially in France bythe New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), in Brazil by one of the tendencies of theParty of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL), in Portugal in the Left Block (BE), inPakistan in the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP), to mention just the main groups.

(2) See also La Vérité/The Truth, issue no.56-57 (September 2007), "Somereflections on the role and place of the United Secretariat today".

(3) In order to avoid extending our point too far, we refer the reader to LaVérité/The Truth, issue no.56-57 (September 2007), "Some reflections on therole and place of the United Secretariat today".

(4) "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International:The Mobilization of the Masses around Transitional Demands to Prepare theConquest of Power ", also known as the Transitional Programme, adopted at thefounding conference of the Fourth International (1938).

(5) Leon Aron, "Darkness on the Edge of Monotown", International HeraldTribune, 16 October 2009.

(6) Rabochie Izvestiya, "international tribune of the class struggle", a Russian-language newspaper published since September 2008, with the participation of militant activists of the Fourth International on an equal basis with labour activists of the former USSR.

(7) FNPR: Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. Contrary to what

its name implies, it is the heir to the bureaucracy's old vertical "trade unions",which were integrated into the management of state enterprises.

(8) Public statement by "Ilya Budraitskis (member of the VPERED SocialistMovement, Russian section of the Fourth International) and MathildeDugauquier (member of the Belgian LCR)", following the attacks on the MoscowMetro that caused the death of 38 passengers (March 2010).



(9) See La Vérité/TheTruth, issue no.67, January 2010, "Sabado and the FourthInternational".

(10) From the weekly Brazilian newspaper Brasil de Fato, February 2010. Thenewspaper was launched at the 2003 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

(11) All big Brazilian companies.

(12) Which has not prevented the USec from being part of the string of forumsand counter-summits, notably, as Cannavo points out: "the 'Summit' inCochabamba on global warming, called by the Bolivian President Evo Morales[see the article by Lucien Gauthier in this issue of La Vérité/The Truth], thevarious Social Forums - that of the Americas in Asunciòn, the European SocialForum in Istanbul and the World Forum, in 2011, in Dakar, the Euro-LatinAmerican summit in Madrid next May and that against NATO in November 2010

in Lisbon."

(13) The USec's leaders are not the only ones to have responded positively tothe call for a "Fifth International" by Chavez. Thus, the defeatist petty-bourgeoiscurrent "International Marxist Tendency" (ex-Militant), ravaged by anunprecedented political crisis and represented in Brazil by Serge Goulart,declared recently (17 March 2010): "Today the so-called Fourth Internationaldoes not exist as an organisation. Those who speak in its name (and there are afew of them) have neither the masses, nor the correct ideas, nor even a clean

banner. All talk of resurrecting the Fourth International on this basis is absolutelyexcluded."

(14) An administrative political unit roughly equivalent to a state, province or county. Metropolitan France is divided administratively into 96 départements,which are grouped together to form 26 regional units.

after the 16th world congress of the united secretariat

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