“WE WERE VERY PLEASED WITH THE FRATERNAL ATMOSPHERE AND THE GOOD LEVEL OF POLITICAL DISCUSSION”
By Gil Garcia, from MAS (Movement of Socialist Alternative), Portugal
Comrades from the IWU-FI, we congratulate us with the successful Congress we attended through your invitation to take part.
We were very pleased with the fraternal atmosphere and the good level of political discussion. The central topics of the meeting, world situation and climate crisis place the IWU-FI in the great debates of the world situation in this convulsive period. We found the discussion very interesting. In the beginning, when we made contact to know the international better, we did not know the number of groups, parties and comrades from different countries and continents that would be present. It was a pleasant surprise and with real positive contributions. The recent development of China’s role and its relationship with the US was also worthwhile. It’s engaging and we agree on considering the illusion generated by the dynamic of social polarisation that moves forward on the planet. To have a perspective of uniting the distinct groups and currents and we took part in this IWU-FI Congress is substantial, and we will continue debating on the way of finding a common ground to rebuild a Revolutionary International. We will move on, comrades. Thank you.
LUKAS, A REVOLUTIONARY MILITANT FROM ITALY
“The path chosen by the IWU-FI is the right one”
My first feeling as a guest to the IWU-FI Congress is a multitude of comrades from different parts of the world. For me, used to a few organisations as part of the old CRFI, it dazzled me. I spoke on world situation together with comrades that had taken part in the greatest world struggles of the present. To name just a few: comrades from the PSL in Venezuela who fight against the Bonapartist government policies of Nicolas Maduro, or the Argentinian comrades in Socialist Left fighting for legal, safe and free abortion. It was thrilling to see comrade Juan Carlos Giordano’s oath in Congress as a worker, not a parliamentarian.
The two-days Congress I joined in dealing with very concrete topics with which revolutionary socialists worldwide have to face. The crisis caused by coronavirus was not a health crisis but a systemic crisis, another one in this wicked system called capitalism, one of the most serious in history for capitalism. Coronavirus throws fuel to fire to the world economic crisis and causes a new acute crisis. It’s no more of it but a leap that provokes an unprecedented crisis in capitalism with consequences to both the bourgeoisie and the masses. There’s a colossal change for capitalism and humanity ongoing. This stated correctly in the updating document for the Congress, underlines that the weakest link in this aim context of fall of capitalist regimes is the leadership of the working class. This prospect appears in chapter 5 of the world document: “The crisis of the old and new reformists and the vacuum of a revolutionary leadership.”
As I mentioned in the Congress: “I agree with the IWU-FI on this, especially in the last comments which are the frame of the most crucial slogan: ‘the capitalists and not the workers must pay for the capital crisis.” The six points of struggle represent transitory demands valid to all nations here. We must resume Trotsky’s teachings on the strategic task of the Fourth International, which is to destroy capitalism and not to reform it. Its political goal is for the proletariat to conquer power and expropriate the bourgeoisie. The most interesting slogan, if I compare this to other conferences or congresses, I took part, is to unite the revolutionaries: it’s not lip service but a method and based on principles which are clear to all and without asking for a DNA test to the ones who want to join while ensuring a free expression of minorities. With an expression: “I have found you, at last, democratic centralism.”
The following day the debate on the climate crisis and the definition of Russia and China and the nature of their imperialism was a source of learning and exchange of knowledge. The same happened with the document on climate change. Scientific reports point out that by 2050 the planet can turn inhabitable if we do not stop CO2 emissions. This is the abyss capitalism is taking us, while a minority of multimillionaires and their multinationals multiply their gigantic profits. Only by overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist system, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, and with workers’ socialist governments to plan the world economy rationally to look after nature and humankind, we will save the planet. […] We consider ourselves part of this movement and we support the just demands and do everything in our power to conquer the widest unity of action without sectarianism, to fulfil these tasks. We are the revolutionary socialists’ sector in this broad movement in defence of life on the planet.
The IWU-FI supports and promotes all popular and youth struggles, in defence of natural resources and against the plunder and depredation of nature. The IWU-FI does not stop in the simple progressive environmentalism but extends its defence of nature as a part of the struggle towards a new social system that could take care of the planet for good: socialism. A real choice, away from any kind of utopia or fantasy, starting with the scientific data that appeared in several studies: if we do not stop the always growing global warming between 2050 and 2100, the earth won’t be a place for us to live; capitalism with its arrogant exploitation will determine a rise in global temperature of over 7°C, inconsistent with human life.
This is a Congress we must value, far away from sectarian resolutions, and for the debate and topics. A Congress open to the future of the Trotskyist movements, considering the revolutionary Marxism, free from clumsy forms of optimism and in favour of opinions that open to a future perspective. This Congress was a beautiful experience, very rare, I may say, without exaggerating. An international Trotskyist organisation must know how to debate and vote at an international level, otherwise, it is simply a sect that has its self-preservation as its goal based on bureaucratic centralism.
The IWU has the tools for that task and the historic tradition to do so. Rebuilding the Fourth International, uniting revolutionary Marxists, is a necessary task that can and must be claimed. Without the International, there is no revolutionary Marxism and the struggle against capitalism without the International Workers’ Party will lead to new defeats.
The path taken by the IWU-FI is difficult to carry out, but it is the right one. Decisions are taken by discussing in the congresses, not like other Trotskyist organisations, more concentrated on feeding the fattened ego of their leaders. So, let’s talk about socialism and fight for it because the alternative is barbarism and environmental catastrophe. To the comrades of the IWU-FI, thank you for allowing me to take part, I say let’s continue like this!
LONG LIVE SOCIALISM!
