We might assume that social democracy is a political current which has always limited itself to seeking piecemeal reforms through parliamentary action within the framework of capitalism, and opposed any notion of class struggle or the overthrow of the system.
But that would be a mistake. Today’s social democracy - and the laughable "Socialist International" which includes not only Blair’s imperialist Labour Party but also the vicious Zionists of the Israeli Labour Party - is a bastard offspring of what was originally a Marxist movement. The Second International was co-founded in 1889 by Friederich Engels, and committed to an internationalist, class struggle programme.
Right up to the eve of the First World War, the Second International remained formally in support of a programme of internationalism and revolution, enshrined in 1912 in the Basle Manifesto. Within the same International at that stage were revolutionaries including Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks, who in their efforts to stem the degeneration into nationalism and "social patriotism" referred back to the formulations of Basle and urged for them to be upheld.
As Lenin pointed out:
"The Basle Manifesto says (1) that war will create an economic and military crisis; (2) that the workers will regard their participation in the war as a crime, and as criminal any ’shooting each other down for the profit of the capitalists, for the sake of dynastic honour and of diplomatic secret treaties’, and that war evoked ’indignation and revolt’ in the workers; (3) that it is the duty of socialists to take advantage of this crisis and of the workers’ temper so as to ’rouse the people and hasten the downfall of capitalism’; (4) that all ’governments’ without exception can start a war only at ’their own peril’; (5) that governments ’are afraid of a proletarian revolution’; (6) that governments ’should remember’ the Paris Commune (i.e. civil war), the 1905 Revolution in Russia, etc.".
The capitulation of the major European social democratic parties to their "own" imperialist ruling classes came with the shameful vote in the German Reichstag and in parliaments elsewhere in 1914 for war credits to finance the slaughter of what became the first World War. This abandonment of the policies and principles of internationalism on which the Second International had been based became the key dividing line in the workers’ movement.
Lenin and the revolutionaries recognised the need to fight on and develop a new Third International. This would seek to guard against the opportunist and nationalist degeneration which had effectively destroyed the Second International, and resulted in its various leading parties each endorsing a war effort in which their members wound up shooting each other.
The Third (Communist) International, formed in the aftermath of the successful October Revolution, fell victim to a different type of degeneration. This arose from the isolation of the Russian revolution, and the emergence of a cynical and ruthless bureaucracy in the Kremlin, led by Josef Stalin, which turned its back on the idea of internationalism and revolution, and sought deals with imperialist governments in order to preserve its own power and privileges and the caricature of "socialism in one country".
Today the repressive regimes that were built on the Stalinist model in Eastern Europe after 1945 have collapsed in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. They have left their peoples doubly impoverished, facing not only a chaotic and declining economy, but also a reactionary political legacy, not least of which is a lingering distaste among many workers for the notion of "socialism" which they saw so cruelly parodied by crass, corrupt, inept, repressive bureaucracies for over 40 years.
In most other countries the old-style Stalinist parties, once lavishly sponsored by Moscow, have embraced the economics of privatisation and the free market, and re-branded themselves as social democrats.
Today, while Blair and his social democratic cronies in Europe shamelessly do the bidding of the US and imperialist ruling classes, only one organisation fights to keep alive the spirit of internationalism.
Formed in 1939 by Leon Trotsky, who never gave up the fight against Stalinism and for the political line and methods which overthrew capitalism in Russia in 1917, the Fourth International has continued ever since to uphold the political interests and independence of the working class.
Over 60 years later the Fourth International still exists, organises and fights, with sections in many countries, including Britain. After many years of adversity, including periods of repression and illegality in many parts of the world, in which it was pilloried by right wing social democrats, persecuted by the Stalinists, and attacked by the imperialists, it may be small and appear isolated. But the FI continues a vital fight for the principles which can unite the working class internationally against its real enemies.
Its forces and their co-thinkers can be seen on today’s international mobilisations against capitalism and globalisation, and in the front ranks of trade unions and struggles of the oppressed in every country where the FI has members.
In our view, internationalism cannot succeed simply as an idea, an aspiration or a moral conviction in the minds of activists: the commitment to internationalism has to take a political, organised form, in order to strengthen and deepen the fight for a genuine, consistent revolutionary programme.
As a current within a much wider Socialist Alliance, the ISG will not put forward what would be a divisive and sectarian call for all members of the Alliance to agree with or join the Fourth International. This type of organisational ultimatum must be avoided if the Alliances are to overcome the grim legacy of a century of left sectarianism in Britain, and continue to grow as a genuine broad working alliance of comrades from every organisation and none.
We will continue to work loyally and actively to build and strengthen the Alliance. There will be opportunities to show and develop the connections between our struggles and campaigns in Britain and those involving our comrades in other FI sections, and many ways in which our links with key militants in Europe and elsewhere can help to build Alliance campaigns here.
Some people may wonder why as revolutionaries we do not think that the key question is just to build our own revolutionary organisation - or to combine together just with other revolutionaries to form a bigger and better one. Are we abandoning our own politics to build something broader?
Not at all. We certainly wouldn’t participate in any broad party where we were prevented from organising for our own ideas. And it is certainly true that we hope people are convinced by our arguments and that some of them will join our organisation. We also want to see more joint work by all those who are revolutionaries - and an attempt in the long term to see if it is possible to break down the division into so many different groups that has given us all such a bad name.
In fact our reason for existence as a revolutionary socialist organisation is our belief that the only way to mount an effective challenge to the barbaric capitalist system we live under and replace it with a socialist alternative is through the leadership of a mass revolutionary party. Such a revolutionary party would be organised not only in Britain but also on an international basis.
But the conditions have not yet matured in Britain today which would allow the building of such a party: that would need a whole set of new political developments. What is however on the agenda is the creation of a new revolutionary party which would be bigger and stronger than the sum of the currently existing revolutionary groups.
For this to happen, the process that has occurred within the Socialist Alliance, and begun to break down the sectarianism and mistrust between the existing far-left groups would need to evolve still further. What needs to be addressed is the question of revolutionary regroupment or unity.
This is a complicated process which cannot be achieved overnight but it is objectively posed by the development of the Socialist Alliance, which has led to groups who had previously been walled off from each others’ ideas beginning for the first time to work constructively together. Old rivalries have been challenged in this process.
This then has a political logic which could potentially reshape the far left in Britain in a way that would make us much better able to defend the working class and develop the struggle for socialism. It is a process to which the ISG is committed.
We would also argue that, under the right conditions in terms of the class struggle, the broad party to the left of Labour which we want to see emerge from the Socialist Alliance should itself become a revolutionary organisation. This would form the basis for the bigger and stronger revolutionary party we want to build. That would of course mean winning the majority of those within the broad party, who do not today define themselves as revolutionaries to support for this idea.
In our view, therefore, working to reshape the left through the building of a new party to the left of Labour and working within that for the unity of revolutionary forces is the most important task for revolutionary socialists in Britain today.
But at the same time we invite those who have read and agreed with most of this pamphlet and wish to find out more about the ISG and the FI to get in touch with us.
We have much political work to do to set right the problems we have identified, and tackle the enduring crisis of leadership in the trade unions and labour movement. We believe we have a real political contribution to make: and we invite you to help us make it.