(This text has drawn on a number of historical and other documents from our movement – some formulas are more or less direct quotations. The text has drawn in particular from the Transitional Programme, the constitutions and documents of the Third and Fourth Internationals, the WSL/ICL '81 fusion text, etc. It states the fundamental and programmatic basis of the new organisation. Along with the proposed Constitution, the Fusion Text is the most important document for the Fusion Conference).
Part One
The Political Basis for the Formation of the ISG
The ISG bases itself on the Revolutionary Marxist Programme and Method. Revolutionary Marxists are distinguished programmatically from all other tendencies in the working class movement by:
- Recognition of the interdependence of the three sectors of the world revolution;
- Adherence to the theory of Permanent Revolution as a strategy for revolutionary intervention;
- The call for political revolution in the deformed or degenerated workers' states, combined with and as part of our defence of their socialised property relations;
- The application of the transitional method and the method of the united front in the struggle for socialist revolution;
- The struggle for an alliance between the proletariat and specially oppressed layers;
- The construction of a Leninist-type vanguard party, based on the principles of Democratic Centralism, as part of a world party of socialist revolution;
- Defence of workers' democracy as a necessary basis for the functioning of the working class movement in general, and the Leninist Party in particular.
The 'Transitional Programme', the founding document of the Fourth International, begins with the following words:
'The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterised by a historical crisis of leadership of the proletariat.'
These words remain as true to-day as when they were written forty-eight years ago in 1938. The history of the international working class movement, from the time of Marx and Engels to the present day, has been a history of struggle to develop, maintain, and defend the programme of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, against all brands of reformism and Stalinism. The struggle for the Fourth International is directed to this end, and the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism on a world scale. All past experience has demonstrated that no national organisation can remain on a revolutionary course for long without collaboration and common activity with class fighters in other countries. This is because of the international character of the world capitalist system itself. To this end, the ISG is committed to loyally building the Fourth International, as a key component of a future mass revolutionary International.
There can be no short-cuts to the building of our movement nationally or on a world scale. Such a party can only be built on the basis of a struggle to unify the forces of revolutionary marxism, on the basis of democratic centralism, together with the recruitment of forces which can be drawn towards the marxist programme in theory and in practice from the ranks of the existing mass organisations of the class. The key question of party building is always the question of programme and its scientific development in a changing situation.
1) Revolutionary Marxism
The basis of the activity of the ISG is the scientific theory of Marxism, the only theory which gives a clear understanding of present-day society and the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat and its allies and of the necessity for revolutionary change. Marxism is not a series of texts from the past, a lifeless dogma, but its essence is a scientific method, which has, on the basis of experience, codified a body of theory and a programme. It allows for permanent development and a critical clarification of our understanding of the world and for the definition and redefinition of our goals in the light of experience. Marxism starts from experience and always returns to it.
Trotskyism, as a current within the workers' movement, came into existence through the defence of the Marxist programme and method against the distortions and revisions of Marxism at the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy. It represents the unfalsified programme of Bolshevism codified in the first four congresses of the Third International and the platform of the International Left Opposition led by L.D. Trotsky, and strives to incorporate all the key lessons of the international class struggle.
The ISG bases itself on this tradition, and the founding document of the Fourth International, 'The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International,' known as the Transitional Programme, a further enrichment of the programme of Bolshevism. Trotskyism stands for workers' democracy, in particular within the deformed and degenerated workers' states; an unremitting struggle for theoretical clarity; revolutionary activism on the basis of real and practical identification with the living struggles of the proletariat and with all oppressed sectors and groups, whether in the capitalist states or in those parts of the world ruled by Stalinist bureaucracies; unbending hostility to capitalism and irreconcilable struggle against it and against those in the labour movement who stand for its continuation; for class independence of working class organisations from the bourgeoisie; unbending hostility to Stalinism and all its bureaucratic, class collaborationist methods in the Labour movement and in the degenerated and deformed workers' states. Trotskyism is characterised by a thorough-going internationalism.
2) The Interdependence of the Three Sectors of World Revolution
It is important to recognise that the three main forces of world revolution – the colonial revolution, the political revolution in the degenerated and deformed workers' states, and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries – form a dialectical unity. Each force influences the others and receives in return powerful impulses or breaks on its own development.
This interrelationship is materially determined by the unresolved economic contradictions of capitalism and the interpenetration of capital with the bureaucratised 'planned' economies of the deformed workers' states. In this context we still see the proletariat as the only essentially international class, with no interest in subordinating its independent struggles to the defence of any bourgeois or petty bourgeois bureaucratic or Stalinist leadership.
3) Permanent Revolution
World History, from the Russian revolution of 1917 to the present day has repeatedly confirmed the validity of the theory of permanent revolution, developed in 1905 by Trotsky moving boldly beyond the basic framework sketched out by Marx in 1850. Permanent revolution is not an abstract label for an 'objective process', but in essence an active strategy to guide the intervention by Marxist parties in revolutionary struggles.
A successful revolution against imperialist domination in the colonial and semi-colonial world can be completed only if the old bourgeois state is totally destroyed and power is taken by those who will carry through a political and economic programme in the interests of the workers and poor peasants. This is what the Marxist movement has traditionally called the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The revolution cannot stop with democratic reforms, cannot stop at the stage or fully carry through the tasks, of the bourgeois democratic revolution, but must push on to the socialist transformation of the economy. As Trotsky explained in 'What is The Permanent Revolution?':
'Between Kerenskyism and the Bolshevik power, between the Kuomintang and the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is not and cannot be any intermediate stage, that is, no democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants. ... Insofar as this slogan is counterposed to the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it contributes politically to the dissolution of the proletariat in the petty-bourgeois masses and thus creates the most favourable conditions for the hegemony of the national bourgeoisie and consequently for the collapse of the democratic revolution.'
This approach must guide our attitude to such current struggles as those of South Africa's black working class against the apartheid regime, which cannot complete the democratic revolution short of the overturn of capitalist rule. And only in the context of an international fight for the extension of the revolution, can dependent countries like Nicaragua fully break the grip of imperialist oppression and set the stage for future progress. Ultimately, the future of these revolutions depends on the advance of the world revolution – in the last analysis to the imperialist centres themselves.
A correct understanding of permanent revolution – of the necessity for proletarian revolution in the developing countries – does not contradict the need of the proletariat to construct alliances with other social classes, in particular with the poor peasants who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population in these countries. But as Trotsky has emphasised: 'the alliance of these two classes can be realised in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie.' (ibid) Neither does Trotsky's theory conflict with the possibility of varying tempos for the overall process, or with the basic concept of the workers' and farmers' government outlined in the Transitional Programme and elsewhere.
The ISG gives unconditional support to the struggles of oppressed peoples everywhere fighting against imperialism – with particular emphasis upon our obligation to support the struggles of the Irish people against our 'own' imperialist ruling class.
This support to national struggles is unconditional, irrespective of political differences we may have with the methods and programme of the leaderships of these struggles: but it is not uncritical in our attitude to political questions involved.
Communist internationalism involves the struggle against imperialist and 'great power' chauvinism, and also against bourgeois nationalism which seeks to politically decapitate the proletarian component of the national liberation movement.
The ISG supports the struggle for a united and independent Ireland and commits itself to give all possible assistance to Irish revolutionaries in the anti-imperialist struggle.
4) Stalinism and Revolutionary Marxism
Stalinism is a bureaucratic, essentially counter-revolutionary, current within the workers' movement which has its origins in the bureaucratic counter-revolution, led by Joseph Stalin, within the USSR.
The strategy of 'peaceful co-existence' and the theory of 'socialism in one country' are a smoke-screen behind which the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union defends its privileges by maintaining the status quo.
Trotsky describes the definite passing over of the Comintern to the side of the bourgeois order, and its cynically counter-revolutionary role throughout the world. The Comintern under Stalin subordinated the interests of the world working class, through a policy of conciliation and class collaboration, to the national interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. The examples of the Chinese and Spanish revolutions, amongst others, and the policy of the People's Front, the rehabilitation of the stagist conception of the revolution in the dependent countries, confirmed the counter-revolutionary role of the Comintern and its component parties.
The evolution of the Western European Communist Parties since the Popular Front period of the 1930s has resulted in further national degeneration and profound political crises. This has involved major splits, over the degree and openness of collaboration with the national bourgeoisie, and the extent to which this involves repudiating traditional allegiances to Moscow and embracing the openly reformist politics of social democracy.
In the immediate post-war period, the creation of new workers' states, bureaucratically deformed from their inception, led by Communist Parties who were previously part of the, now dissolved, Comintern, posed serious theoretical problems for the analysis of Stalinism.
First, it is necessary to distinguish between two processes. In Eastern Europe, at the end of the war capitalism was suppressed, after some hesitations, through a bureaucratically controlled mobilisation of the masses by the Communist Parties, under the aegis of the occupying Red Army and the Soviet bureaucracy. But more significantly, in Yugoslavia and China, parties of the old Comintern placed themselves at the head of a revolutionary overturn of capitalism, independently of Moscow, and against the policy demanded by Stalin. It is this second process, and the outcome of the Vietnamese struggle against US Imperialism, which has resulted in sharp controversy within the Trotskyist movement. Several, more or less coherent theories emerged within this debate, which, in their application, have resulted in differing approaches to the Communist Parties. It is not the purpose of this text to explore the controversies that resulted from this discussion, nor were the two organisations in a position to resolve or fully discuss our differences on this question. However, a number of these views may be combined in the fused ISG.
The main theories that were expressed in the discussions are summarised as follows:
Two main views have been expressed within the IG leadership.
The first, maintains that Trotsky, writing before the fragmentation of the Stalinist monolith, did not exclude the possibility that, 'under the influence of completely exceptional circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash, mass revolutionary pressure, etc.) the petit-bourgeois parties, including the Stalinists, may go further than they themselves wish along the road to a break with the bourgeoisie.' ('Transitional Programme,' our emphasis) This thesis, only thought to be an outside possibility in Trotsky's day – has proved, prophetically, to correspond with actual developments in the post war period, where Communist Parties, whose origins lay within the bureaucratised Comintern, have led revolutions (bureaucratically controlled), against Stalin's policy. These revolutions were made in a specific historical context, which excluded the possibility of limiting the revolutionary process to a bourgeois democratic stage – their stated objective – outside of the collective suicide of the party/army bureaucracy.
These revolutions were bureaucratically deformed from their inception. The Chinese revolution in particular was carried through at great cost to the workers and poor peasants. Despite conflicts of national interest, these regimes are part of the world Stalinist movement.
Theoretically this thesis can be formulated in the following way: The crisis of Stalinism in the post-war period has resulted in a further national degeneration of the Communist Parties, which have on occasion asserted their own national/bureaucratic interests against the wishes of the Soviet bureaucracy (or the Chinese). In the last analysis, the majority of these parties subordinate the class interests of the workers to their own bureaucratic interests and/or the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union. These bureaucratic interests have, in some circumstances, required a break with the bourgeoisie.
Such a thesis does not exclude the development of left (or right) Stalinist currents – as with Social Democracy, but excludes the possibility of reforming/transforming these parties into revolutionary parties.
The second proposition explains that the parties which overthrew capitalism in Yugoslavia, China and Vietnam, creating new, deformed, workers' states, must have (at least partially) broken from Stalinism. World Stalinism is a counter-revolutionary current through and through and therefore cannot make the revolution. Certain CPs have broken from their subordination to Moscow's line of peaceful co-existence and gradualism and led victorious revolutions.
The crisis of the Stalinist movement in the post-war period means that we must make a concrete analysis of the forces originating from, or indeed calling themselves, Communist Parties, judging them on the basis of what they do, rather than by what they say.
The third alternative theory, has been presented by the SG leadership: As a bureaucratic caste dependent for its power and privileges upon the preservation of nationalised property relations, Moscow Stalinism has shown itself capable of taking – as a defensive response to the imperialist offensive – measures to overturn capitalism in Eastern Europe, while at each point firmly repressing any independent political mobilisation of the working class. Indeed the Eastern European overturns took place in the context of Stalin's blatant betrayal of the revolutionary opportunities opened up in Western Europe and elsewhere, and by no means contradict his overall objective of securing a new 'peaceful coexistence' with imperialism in the post-war balance of forces. From this, decisive political standpoint, Stalinism retains its character as a counter-revolutionary force in relation to the workers' movement.
In other instances (Yugoslavia, China, Vietnam) where Stalinist parties have as a last resort mobilised to defeat imperialist-backed forces, and later reluctantly carried through the overturn of capitalism, they too have done everything possible to contain and crush any independent actions of the working class.
The result in each case has been the emergence of a new type of state, a grotesque caricature of the revolutionary Russian workers' state of October 1917: in reality the only comparison with these post-war states – in which workers themselves and their class organisations have never held the power – is the degenerated, bureaucratised Soviet Union under Stalin. These new states are not 'workers' states' as fought for by Marxists, but from their very birth have been deformed workers' states, qualitatively different, requiring the cleansing fire of political revolution to free them from the grip of Stalinist bureaucracy and liberate the potential of their nationalised property relations.
5) The Bureaucratised Workers' States
In the Workers' states which we consider to be degenerated and deformed – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, and other so-called 'communist' countries – we stand for political revolution, led by the working class.*
Only a genuine revolution involving the masses themselves directly in the political process can remove this bureaucratic obstacle to socialist development. Though populist 'left'-talking currents may emerge from time to time (eg, Gomulka, Nagy), we reject any possibility of the self reform of these entrenched bureaucratic castes, and therefore any strategy of 'self limitation,' which was the policy pursued by the majority leadership of 'Solidarnosc' in Poland.
By political revolution we mean the overthrow of the bureaucracy by insurrectionary means. This requires the building of Marxist parties. As Trotsky wrote in the Transitional Programme:
'Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development towards socialism. There is but one party capable of leading the Soviet masses to insurrection – the party of the Fourth International.'
At the same time, we defend the nationalised economies of these countries against capitalism and imperialism, unconditionally: that is irrespective of the self-serving, usually anti-working class and reactionary policies of the ruling bureaucrats. Insofar as the bureaucracy defends the gains of the revolution, albeit for its own ends, we extend critical support – we defend the right of the Soviet Union to defend itself militarily against imperialist encirclement and aggression. Nonetheless, the best defence of the Soviet Union must be the international extension of the revolution and the overthrow of the bureaucracy and the establishment of genuine soviet democracy. In any clash between the policy of the bureaucracy and working class revolt against the bureaucratic tyranny, we stand entirely with the working class against the bureaucratic parasites who oppress them with state terror.
- (Differences existed in the discussions on the character of the Cuban revolution and the Cuban state. This will require a debate at some point in the new organisation. There was agreement that capitalism has been overturned in Cuba, and that bureaucratic deformations exist.)
6) The Transitional Method and the United Front
A hallmark of Trotskyism is the application of transitional demands, and the use of the united front tactic in defence of the interests of the working class and its allies. These are fundamental for reaching and mobilising working people in Britain to-day and raising the level of consciousness of the masses to an understanding of the necessity for socialist revolution. Sectarian and opportunist currents, claiming adherence to the Trotskyist programme, retreat from an interventionist approach to the class struggle and substitute abstract propagandism (ie, reject unity in struggle, except on the basis of their broad socialist programme), or, on the other hand, restrict themselves to minimum demands, thus tail-ending the existing consciousness or leadership of struggles. A revolutionary leadership cannot be built by standing on the sidelines (with or without soap-box), as commentators or critics, waiting for the masses to fall in line behind our rostrum, nor can it be constructed by dissolving our independent banner within the existing movement.
For a mass proletarian leadership to develop, we need the conscious, active participation and intervention of revolutionary Marxists – challenging and exposing the inadequacies of existing reformist and Stalinist leaders; showing that we have good practical proposals on how to move forward, trying to unite with others around these proposals, and demonstrating that we are prepared to take responsibility in carrying them through.
More specifically we have to develop demands, transitional demands, which flow out of the present conditions of struggle and consciousness of the masses, which, if taken up and fought for by class action on a broad scale, would confront the working class with the question of class political power and the state. The transitional programme, taken as a whole, is a programme for the conquest of state power by the working class and its allies.
In the epoch of Social Democracy, before the international labour movement collapsed into national fragments at the feet of the warring bourgeoisies in 1914, the majority within the Second International operated with a minimum and a maximum programme. In a non-revolutionary conjuncture, all revolutionaries come under similar pressures to do the same. The maximum programme was the millennium, the unseen goal in the far distance, the subject of abstract propaganda and holiday speechifying, while the minimum programme consisted of limited practical objectives in the context of the everyday struggles of the working class. The failure, over a period of time, of Social Democracy to link the daily class struggle with the goal of socialist revolution led to its gradual accommodation to capitalism and eventual collapse into social chauvinism and reformism.
The communist movement, reorganising itself during and immediately after the First World War, and the Russian Revolution, resolved to have done with the minimum/maximum division – it declared:
'The alternative offered by the Communist International in place of the minimum programme of the reformists and centrists is:– the struggle for the concrete needs of the proletariat, for demands which in their application undermine the power of the bourgeoisie, which organise the proletariat, and which form the transition to the proletarian dictatorship, even if certain groups of the masses have not yet grasped the meaning of such proletarian dictatorship.'
Stalinism abandoned the method of transitional demands, while Trotsky and the International Left Opposition developed, extended and codified the transitional demands that were appropriate to the imperialist epoch, in the 'Transitional Programme' of 1938.
The united front tactic, as elaborated by the early Comintern under Lenin, was much more than a political manoeuvre or a literary technique to 'expose' the treachery of reformist bureaucrats. It was always a policy for defending and advancing the interests of the working class by seeking to unite its mass organisations and the unaligned workers in a common struggle against the bourgeoisie. The two inseparable tenets of this tactic are united action for any genuine step forward and organisational independence of the revolutionary party.
This tactic is necessary because of the divisions within the working class. Unity in action is necessary not only within the walls of a single factory or industry, but also for such national political battles as the struggle against imperialist war, the fight against nuclear weapons and NATO.
The united front is a tactic which arises out of the need for the revolutionary organisation, which is not yet recognised as the leader of the proletariat, to prove to the masses that it is ready to wage a common battle with anyone, so long as that battle lies on the historic road of the proletariat towards the expropriation of capital.
The tragic example of Germany 1933 showed most graphically the possible consequences of abandoning this approach, while the grotesque Popular Front caricature of the Comintern tactic underlined the necessity for clear class lines to be drawn. Though conditions are not ripe in Britain for this 'classical' form of the united front between our small forces and the mass workers' organisations, the ISG upholds the basic conceptions of the united front and will seek to translate them into policies for today's class struggle.
A correct use of the united front method to-day will help to win radicalising workers and other activists to the revolutionary organisation and to its perspectives for transforming the unions and other organisations into revolutionary instruments. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves in the form of action committees, strike committees, rank and file caucuses/tendencies against the bureaucrats and for union democracy, and groupings that seek to advance a class struggle strategy. Such formations must correspond to the needs of the moment and to the level of consciousness and combativity of the working class.
7) The Proletariat and the Struggles of The Oppressed
We fight for the workers' movement to mobilise in the fight for the demands of the specially oppressed, forging an alliance with independent movements and organisations of women, black people, and lesbians and gay men.
The mobilisation of the whole workers' movement around demands for the liberation of women requires a major step beyond the passing of occasional tokenistic or abstract resolutions through labour movement organisations. It is a fact that without the radicalisation and organisation of countless thousands of working class women there will be no socialist revolution.
The ISG will fight for full and equal rights for women, for female liberation from male domination, which since the start of class society has been inseparable from class power. We fight, in particular, for the liberation of women of our class who have been most accurately described as 'the slaves of the slaves' and especially for black women and lesbians, suffering a double and triple oppression.
Women's liberation presupposes the root-and-branch reorganisation of society. It will be one of the most profound revolutions in history. This necessary social reconstruction demands a proletarian revolution which overthrows capitalist social relations. Only with the consolidation of a truly socialist society and the elimination of the patriarchal family will the liberation of women become a reality. However, this process will not occur without the conscious organisation of women today and during the transition to socialism. To this end we defend the right of women to organise autonomously but fight to win this movement to an alliance with the working class movement and the struggle for socialism. Within the women's movement we fight for a socialist-feminist perspective.
The ISG rejects the notion that women's liberation is simply a matter for women to discuss and organise around, and commits itself to fight for the maximum education, participation and mobilisation of male comrades in this work.
We support the right of lesbians and gay men to organise autonomously against their oppression and for the right to decide their own sexual lives. The oppression of lesbian and gay sexual behaviour has been rooted in male power and the family. The division of society between heterosexual people and non-heterosexual people, and the oppression of lesbians and gay men, depends on the bourgeois social relations, and reinforces the heterosexual family.
We also support the right of black people to organise autonomously against all forms of racism and oppression. Racism is rooted in the division of labour imposed by capital on a world level between the imperialist and the dominated countries. Within the imperialist countries black people have formed part of the reserve army of labour. The continual tide of violent racist and fascist attacks on black people underlines the need for Marxists to fight within the labour movement for full support to black self-defence organisations, and with the objective of establishing systematic workers' defence of black communities, in the best traditions of the Trotskyist movement.
Britain's imperialist past (and present) has resulted in a Labour Movement which is imbued with racist and chauvinist ideology. Without a struggle against the social chauvinism, racism and sexism that are characteristic of Labourism, the working class will not be able to fully unite its own ranks nor lead a social movement that can overthrow capitalism and reconstruct society on a socialist basis
8) The Revolutionary Party
The ISG is committed to building a revolutionary party in Britain which can resolve the crisis of leadership of the working class: a party democratically controlled by an active working class membership, which preserves a political independence, based on its programme; fights for ideological and political hegemony within the working class, against all manifestations of bourgeois ideology, in order to lead the working class in the seizure of power.
As a proletarian organisation, the ISG lays its main emphasis on recruiting and training a working class cadre based on an intervention in the mass organisations, the Trade Unions, the Labour Party, workplaces and mass movements. Within this framework, the ISG will pay particular attention to the integration of the most oppressed layers, in particular women and black people. It is vital that the fused organisation develop active youth work to draw a new layer of young people into revolutionary politics, encouraging them to develop as Marxists through political struggle denied to them by the Labour bureaucracy.
Only a self-active and critically minded membership, trained in the methods of Marxism, which can draw together, centralise, all the diverse experiences of the working class and its allies, will be capable of forging a Leninist party. The struggle for power by the proletariat – led by its party – is the most ruthless and irreconcilable struggle in all history. A loosely-knit, heterogeneous, undisciplined, untrained organisation is utterly incapable of succeeding in this task.
At the same time, genuine democracy in arriving at decisions in the Leninist organisation is the absolute prerequisite and dialectical complement of the centralism we must apply in carrying them out. These two concepts, democracy and centralism, are for us inherently linked and inseparable; neither one can exist without the other.
This understanding does not exist in many organisations claiming to base themselves on the working class. This is particularly the case with the parties of Social Democracy and the so-called Communist Parties. However many organisations on the far left, even those which claim adherence to Marxism and Trotskyism, have an appalling record of contempt for internal democracy. Our fusion is between organisations formed in opposition to such methods.
We reject the method of one sided discussion, with the muzzling of oppositional views, held in an atmosphere of intimidation and threats of disciplinary action against loyal minorities. We also reject the methods of unprincipled political combinations, designed to enable an established leadership to undemocratically retain control of the organisation's apparatus and leadership.
It is from these considerations of democracy and unity in action, which are based upon the experience of the international class struggle, that we derive the Leninist principles of organisation, namely Democratic Centralism.
7) Workers' Democracy
Workers' democracy is also a necessary basis for the functioning of the working class movement in general.
The struggle for partial and transitional demands to be taken up by the Labour Movement will come into conflict with the bureaucracy of the mass organisations. In periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies of the Trade Unions and the Labour Party aim to maintain their mastery of the mass movement in order to render it harmless. Therefore, Revolutionary Marxists should always strive not only to renew the top leadership of the Trade Unions, advancing new militant leaders in place of routine functionaries and careerists, and be in the forefront of the fight for Trade Union (and Labour Party) democracy; but should also create in all possible instances independent militant organisations corresponding more closely to the tasks of mass struggle against bourgeois society. (eg, unofficial strike committees, support committees etc.)
Factory committees, are elements of dual power inside the factory, as are genuine working class committees against, for example, war or councils of action thrown up by the growing pressure of the mass movement. The very appearance of these forms of organisation bear witness to the fact that the class struggle will have overflowed the limits of the traditional organisations of the proletariat. As in the Trade Unions, Revolutionary Marxists insist on the election, accountability and recallability of all representatives. All paid officials of the Labour Movement in the period of transition and after, should receive no more than the average wage of a skilled worker.
Part Two
The ISG and The Struggle to Rebuild a Trotskyist Organisation in Britain
A) The political convergence, accelerated over the past months of discussion and joint work, has made possible the fusion of our two groups into a common, democratic centralist, organisation based on this and other documents jointly drawn up. This text and a Constitution, represent the basis of the new organisation.
Together with fundamental programmatic agreement, outlined in Part One of this statement, there has proved to be substantial agreement on perspectives, orientation, and tasks for building a revolutionary organisation in Britain. (see other texts)
However, it has been agreed by both sides that further discussion and clarification is required, and planned, in the new organisation, particularly in relation to some international questions.
Agreement has been reached by the two organisations on fundamental questions of programme, such as the theory of Permanent Revolution. Nonetheless, differences have been located in the concrete application of this theory in some cases, eg, Cuba and Central America, while a substantial agreement exists in relation to South Africa. The discussions have been exploratory rather than conclusive and point to the need for a wider discussion, particularly on the nature of post-war Stalinism, and the problems this has caused the Trotskyist movement. There are differences on the historical divisions of the Trotskyist movement since World War 2, resulting in different evaluations of the Fourth International in relation to other international currents. But there is agreement to debate these differences while working loyally to build a British section of the Fourth International.
- (a) It is proposed that a prepared discussion on Central America is scheduled to be taken at the first conference of the ISG. This does not exclude other discussions as necessary.
- (b) For these and other reasons connected to the full integration of the two component parts of the new organisation it is proposed to hold a full delegate conference, as laid down in the Constitution, within one year of the fusion date.
B) In relation to Britain, the question of the Labour Party, its character, and its relationship to the Trade Unions is central for Revolutionary Marxists and for the ISG. They are questions which have historically disorientated the Marxist movement in the past. Wide areas of agreement have been achieved on this during the fusion process.
The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and the Tasks of Revolutionaries
The Labour Party, is based on the working class and the trade unions. But its policies, methods, relationship to the bourgeois state, its leadership, dominated as it is by the trade union bureaucracy, its programme, its record in government over 60 years, all lead us to reaffirm Lenin's characterisation of it as a "bourgeois/workers' party".
"..the concepts, 'political organisation of the trade union movement,' or 'political expression of the movement,' are wrong ones. Of course the bulk of the members of the Labour Party are workers; however, whether a party is really a political party of the workers or not depends not only upon whether it consists of workers, but also upon who leads it, upon the content of its activities and of its political tactics."
"...from this point of view, the only correct one, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party for although it consists of workers it is led by reactionaries, and the worst reactionaries at that who act fully in the spirit of the bourgeoisie."
This description by Lenin, clearly defines the Labour Party's contradictory character. The Labour Party, although not a party of the bourgeoisie, is a party that serves capitalism.
It is also based on the working class movement, whose social existence is in contradiction to the capitalist class. In that contradiction lies the potential of transcending Labourism and the Labour Party itself.
This contradiction means that the Labour Party is not always the most reliable instrument of capitalist government, despite the reassurances given by the bureaucracy. Labour in government can be useful for capitalism when, together with the Trade Union bureaucracy, it induces workers patiently to bear the cost of capitalism's problems, or, in the future when it can be brought to power under conditions of mass upheaval, in order to head off any potential challenge to the system as a whole. (this role has been historically referred to as the democratic counter-revolution, eg Germany in 1918/19.)
Under conditions of class polarisation the working class has, historically, turned to its traditional organisations – organisations built up by them in more than a hundred years of struggle. Over the past decade we have seen the emergence of a left reformist current in the Labour Party, with substantial support amongst active trade unionists. This phenomenon known internationally as the 'Bennite left' underlines the importance of rejecting sectarian abstention from the struggles that take place within the organised workers' movement; while recognising the political limitations of the leaderships of this type of current. We must therefore reject the ultra-left sectarianism of organisations like the British SWP and the WRP, and their mirror images; opportunist and tail-endist currents like the 'Militant' and 'Socialist Action'.
Britain is the country of trade unions par excellence. The Labour Party is both based on the trade unions and was founded by their leaders as an extension of their request for reforms within the framework of British Imperialism. The trade union and Labour bureaucracies and leaderships constitute, as Trotsky explained, but one principle. 'Trade union politics' or 'Economism' lie at the core of Labourism, more than with most other mass Social Democratic Parties in Europe. The struggle for political leadership against this 'principle' – Labourism – requires a systematic intervention into both the Labour Party and the trade unions. Sectarian abstention from these arenas, combined with an ultra-left perspective of outflanking this existing Labour Movement, or at least its leadership, on the basis of a purely spontaneous struggle of the masses will be doomed to failure. A mass revolutionary party will be forged in the life and death struggle, led by conscious, organised, revolutionaries, against Labourism and all its manifestations.
It is necessary to relate politically to the active rank and file of the labour movement and share their struggles against the capitalists and the right wing bureaucracy, while fighting to develop them politically beyond the limited horizons offered by 'Bennism' and traditional left reformist leaderships.
If Marxists are to win real authority in the unions, a concrete programme related to specific developments of the class struggle must be elaborated, going beyond the simple reiteration of general slogans of the 1938 'Transitional Programme'. The test of political work in the unions cannot be based upon simply raising abstract slogans or campaigns in a propagandist fashion as has been the practice of many post-war Marxist organisations: it must include an assessment of the success or failure of Marxists in establishing bases of support in the workplaces and unions, in developing tactics, demands and initiatives to take forward and go beyond the spontaneous day to day struggle of the working class, and thus winning the best militants to the marxist organisation. In this conjuncture, systematic, interrelated, long term work in the work-places, in the Trade Union structures, in the Labour Party and mass campaigns will be the bedrock of our activity.
The exact emphasis, tactical methods and options that revolutionaries may adopt in pursuing these goals are not the subject of this statement. (See Joint Perspectives and Tasks Documents.)
C) The ISG will be individual members of the Fourth International from its inception and will play a full part in its internal life, according to the statutes of that movement. Our aim is to build and become the Section of the Fourth International in Britain as a component part of a world party of socialist revolution.
Note: The above statement, jointly drawn up by the two organisations, outlines the main areas of agreement on programmatic and other fundamental questions, and at the same time points to some areas which remain unresolved at the time of fusion. The statement is not exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with other texts presented to the fusion conference.
ENDS. 18/2/87.