This is a projoct which needs to be aired. I haven't the re sources to launch one, and I'm no: looking to be the general secretary of an international organisation. but 1 find wherever The First International historically, the Scoond International, the Third International. the Fourth International - they are all structures from the past. and I do think we need to find some global basis for collaboration.
Take America, which I know quite well. Congressman Ron Dellums is the leader of the Black Caucus in the US Congress, and chair of the armed servicemen's committec, whom I've known for years. He's a socialist and calls himself one.
Malcolm X
I think of the inheritors of the Martin Luther King tradition. knew Malcolm X, met him in Chicago and did a long television discussion with him 30-odd yes are If you look at the people that are about, there's no framework in which they can work, and maybe if you had conferences or seminars or discussions, maybe even, and this is what I would like to sec, launch some sort of appeal, it might provide a locus around which poople can rally.
But this is not the idea of having a doctrine imposed or ideological domination. What's It would be about very simple thines. what everyone wants s work, a decent home, good education, good health, dignity when they're okd, peace and the protection of the envitonment."
AS Workers neod revolutionary leadership world-wide IN SUCCESSIVE interviews in this paper Tony Benn has argued the necessity of a mass International to link up the struggles of working people worldwide.
Socialist Outlook enthusiastically supports this proposal. May Day 1993 is celebrated by workers demonstations in many lands, nothing is more obvious than that the struggle for workers' power is an international struggle.
Our enemy, world capitalism. is organised on an international basis - through transnational corporations which dominate world trade, through economic blocs like the EC and the new North American trading block NAFTA, through military alliances like NATO.
Corporations
How can working people contront this internatical power of capital in a world where big corporations like Ford and IBM can shift their production swiftly from one country to another? How can mass struggles win when local ruling elites can summon up the power of the United States and other imperialist countries against local popular resistance?
In any case socialism cannot be built in one country. or a small group of countries. Whenever a revolution takes place, for example the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution, imperialism internationally mobilises against it.
Working people thus need mary types of international links and solidarity. Trade unionists fighting a common employer or groups of employers need interPRogressive struggles, especially those in eastern Europe and the so-called third world", need solidarity and A7 DAI practical aid from workers in the imperialist West Direct links between workers. international solidarity with struggles and many other types of practical mutual support are needed. But workers always need a political party to represent their interests; and the most efficient form of political struggle is an 'International', a political party organised on an international scale.
The key paradox for the workers movement in 1993 is the gap between the bankruptcy and crisis of international capitalism. and the weakness of the polltical organisation and consciousness of the working class.
Of course the working class. despite many defeats over the last 20 years, still possesses powertul trade unions and political parties, especially in Western Europe. But the conscious revolutionary wing of the workers movement is very weak, at least compared with the huge tasks of combatting the offensive of world imperialism.
Tony Benn's proposal for a Fifth International' is thus to be greatly welcomed. Until Benn's intervention, based socialist force which has even raised the idea of a new International has been the Braziian Workers Party (PT).
But a mass International could only be one organised by working people themselves, on the basis of revolutionary opposition to imperialism; there is no government in the world which embodies such a political position.
It would have to be a revolutionary formation. Trotsky, and his close supporters in the 1930s like James P. Cannon, explained that a new revolubonary international could be a diverse formation, indeed almost inevitably would. ABA "the perspective of a mass International has to be consciously fought for, with organised forces, and with a political programme"
Provided that it was based on clear anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist principles, the conscious adherents of the tradition of Lenin and the Bolsheviks could operate as a loyal minority in such a regroupment.
The problem is that this nice Idea of assembling all those forces committed to resolute anti-capitalist struggle in one international will not happen spontaneously. In many places these mass forces remain to be built. Even where such forces exist they often do not see the need for an International.
Mass force needed When Trotsky built the Fourth International he was under no lusions. i was a any orce What was needed was a really mase international to cont me domination of the working class by the Stalinists and social But all socialists have to start with what they nave. not what they would like.
The task which Trotsky set the Fl, which is still its task today, is to bring a new mass International into existence. Of course there can be debates, there can be seminars, informal links and discussion of many types about building a new international. But nothing will replace political struggle to politically regenerate ment.
The non-existence of a mass International is not simply a product of the fallure to grasp the need for international organisation; its failure is also a product of the weakness of the revolutionary wing of the workers moveren For Socialst Outlookthe building of a new mass International proceeds in the same way as building a revolutionary party in this country. It is a matter of starting where we are, not where we would like to be. That means we have to get on and build with the forces we have, not the speculative mass forces of tomorrow.
Upheavals
That's why we support the building of the actually existing MAY DAY SPECIAL Fourth International. It is not a mass force, but it has a common programme and common activities, and exists in about 40 coun tries.
The future mass international will not be the result of individual recruitment to the present Fourth International, but will only be the result of huge upheavals and regroupments involving mass political forces. But the perspective of a mass internatonal nas to be coll sciously fought for, with organised forces, and with a political oropramme That's why with disagree with Tony Benn that the Fourth international is a 'structure from the past. It is a force in the present fighting for the future.
The future in a purely chronological sense wil come spontaneously of course. The socialist future has to be organised. The point is not just to be for a future mass international; to point is to build an international revolutionary socialist move ment to fight for it.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.41. May 1, 1993. Page 10