Call for the First International Debate's Forum for the Fourth International's Reconstruction
The Internationalist Bolshevik Liaison (LBI) from Brazil and the Revolutionary Working Party (POR) from Argentine, after a rich process of political discussions and united actions decided to add their militant efforts by launching this declaration calling for an International Debate's Forum. The key aim of such a meeting is to create an attraction pole for the revolutionary militants and organisations who are now, scattered and isolated from one another, fighting against the revisionism. In this way, we try to help the construction process of a new Fourth-Internationalist Tendency as a concrete step to give continuity to the political-programmatic lessons of Trotsky and the Fourth International founded on 1938.
Both, the LBI and the POR, understand the accomplishment of such a meeting as only a first step of a lengthy and patient process of genuine revolutionaries' regroupment, who do not let themselves be gained by the weight of the counterrevolutionary organisations (as the Stalinism, the socialdemocracy, the bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalism and the assorted People Front organisations).
We are certain that this initiative bases itself on the method of frank and loyal debate and on the hard and rich controversy for political clarification, which are the landmarks of the best Marxist traditions and sealed the unit of the Third International. This method means, actually, a rupture with the centrist fusions and regroupments (in both its opportunistic face and its sectarian one) which graze in the fields of the self-denominated Trotskyist movement. The decision of summoning to this conference, without any self-proclaimed or sectarian spirit, is based on the successful experience that our own organisations have been developing since both splitted from the international currents that they previously integrated.
In spite of coming both groups from the Altamirism, Worker Cause (Causa Operaria) in the case of the nucleus which gave its origin to the LBI and the Working Party (Partido Obrero) in the case of the POR, the approach between us is based on a recent process of mutual knowledge which began when the Argentinean POR, in a political bend towards the left, started publicly its breaking with the policies of the Bolivian POR (specially with its idealistic Menshevik party's conception, its scorn to work for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, and its arbitrary and unmarxist definition of the "Bolivian's exceptional nature", which led to its adaptations to the bourgeois regime under a far left make up). The LBI, on its side, had just processed its rupture with the Argentinean Bolshevik Party (PBCI), denouncing the pro-Zionist positions of that group and its labourist demagogic deflection, which actually was a smoke curtain to mask its strong spirit of vanguard sect isolated from the masses.
The previously faced hard controversies (between the LBI and the Lorism - specially with its Brazilian section-, between the POR and the PBCI, and even those produced more than one decade ago when both nuclei militated in the Altamirism) far from clouding with prejudices the relations, serve as a base to deepen the debate, which at this moment we are trying to extended to all the militants and organisations that are oriented to reconstruct the Fourth International and to fight for the Proletarian Revolution, in an open delimitation from the revisionist syphilis which works for the destruction of Trotsky's heritage.
The decision to summon to this Conference is done with the aim of starting a debate with the left vanguard that vindicates itself as Trotskyist (or that which, without vindicating itself directly as Trotskyist, is opened to a process of elaboration of the historical balance of the contributions of Trotsky, the Left Opposition, and the Fourth International) about the program needed to participate in the class struggle at an international level. In this way, we try to develope an authentically political revolutionary pole which, in spite of its limitations, would grow as an alternative to the bulk of pseudo-Trotskyists tendencies. In this respect, the LBI and the POR present the following programmatic points agreed by both organisations, which should serve as a political platform to orient the debate in the called meeting.
REVOLUTIONARY DEFENSIVISM
Both currents converge in characterising the former-Working States of the European East and the USSR, even though still bureaucratised by the counterrevolutionary Stalinism, as historical conquests of the humanity against the Capitalism, which should had been unconditionally defended. The destruction of these states was a counterrevolutionary process that eliminated the immense political conquests that the humanity had produced since the Bolshevik Revolution. It is currently under discussion the details and the rate of each restoration process, as well as the different tactical positions that one should have under each circumstance. However, in any case, both currents agree that the touchstone is the unconditional defense of the social bases of the Working States.
The Capitalist restoration opened a stage of political, ideological and militar offensive of Imperialism all over the planet, where the masses, in spite of being systematically betrayed by the socialdemocratic, neo-Stalinist, and nationalist directions and by the tradeunion bureaucracy, try to defend their conquest.
Both groups believe that only a Political Revolution that would have taken away the bureaucracy by placing to the head of the Working States an authentic revolutionary party, which represents the historical interests of the proletariat, would have meant a triumph for the masses in their way to the Socialism.
In the European East and the former-USSR happened just the opposite: the tendencies to the Political Revolution were squashed (coup of Jaruselzky in Poland, defeat of the Prague Spring, etc) prevailing the capitalist restoration and the return to the private property. Because of this, the role of the Stalinism in the control of the state was taken by governments and regimes totally subordinated to Imperialism, oriented to destroy the inherited social and economic structure of the old Working States, which were transformed into literal examples of the capitalist barbarism, evidenced by: hunger, misery, unemployment and prostitution. Unlike what is being supported by diverse pseudo-Trotskyist currents, there was nothing of progressive in the fall of the Berlin's Wall and in the USSR's collapse.
The task of the revolutionaries and the vanguard now is the unconditional defense of the still alive Working States against both the internal counterrevolution impelled by sectors of the bureaucracy related directly to Imperialism and the capitalist military aggression. The maintenance of the conquests of the revolution can only be assured by the proletariat through the landslide of the Stalinism by a revolutionary party and the establishment of the soviet's working democracy; that is to say, by means of a political revolution.
NATIONAL QUESTION
Both organisations unconditionally support the defense of the nations oppressed by Imperialism proposing that the proletariat and the poor peasantry construct, in those nations, an united defense line of the democratic rights of the masses. We display as a political alternative a revolutionary program which links the defense of the oppressed nation with the fight for the power taking on the part of the exploited ones.
We characterise that the national bourgeoisie of the semi-colonial countries is historically not capable of leading an authentic anti-imperialist fight. At the same time, we support that only the proletariat is capable of leading consequently the fight against the national oppression. The remaining democratic tasks can be achieved only by the working class through the Socialist Revolution. This is the theory of the Permanent Revolution.
In case of a concrete imperialistic aggression, we do not deny the possibility of establishing anti-imperialist united fronts (even with sectors of the national bourgeoisie). However, we conceive those fronts as tactical instances of united action against imperialistic attacks, and never ever as strategic or programmatic fronts. We are strongly against the formation of coalition governments between working and bourgeois parties to save the Bourgeois State from bankruptcy.
It is subject of debate for the conference whether the Theses of East (approved by III the International), in which the tactic of the United Front is developed (proletarian front, for the advanced capitalist countries, anti-imperialist front for the colonies and semi-colonies), leave a concrete possibility for a step-in interpretation of the revolution, and end up making possible the adoption of a People Front policy, which subordinates the proletariat to the bourgeois nationalism.
CONCEPTION OF THE PARTY
The construction of Bolshevik parties in each country as part of the fight for the reconstruction of the Fourth international, understood like a General Staff of the Proletarian Revolution, is a basic agreement between the LBI and the POR.
This Leninist conception of party delimits us from all the groups that do not agree with the idea that the revolutionaries must be professional militants who dedicate the best of their time and energies to the construction of the party and the International.
Independently whether the direction panels of the party are financially professionalized or not, we understand that a party of professional militants is one that has as its objective the power taking by the proletariat, and does not subordinate its actions to the limits of an unclassist ethic, independent of the revolutionary objectives and the historical interests of the proletariat.
On the other hand, we understand that the revolutionary party should work from up- to downwards, in an alive and dialectic process of political discussions, oriented by a democratic centralist regime, which respects and guarantees the internal discussion, but over everything assures the united action against the bourgeoisie. The construction of an authentic revolutionary party must have a conspirative character, combining the legal and illegal fight in order to take the political power by means of the insurrection, fundamental channel of the Proletarian Revolution.
We understand the political-organisational foundations of the Leninism (centralism democratic, battle parties of panels, discipline and militant hierarchy) as the central principles that must orient the revolutionary militancy independently of the organisational form that the party can acquire in the course of its developing.
REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
We consider that the central task of the revolutionary parties is the fight for the power taking by the working class through a Proletarian Revolution. We affirm the validity of the Socialist Revolution like an obligatory channel to build the dictatorship of the proletariat. This must be understood like a necessary transitional stage between Capitalism and Communism.
We deny and denounce all the fetishes of the bourgeois democracy and the reforming policy that display the electoral channel and the pseudo-democratic institutions of the capitalist regime like a political alternative for the exploited ones. We reject the adoption of the institutional channel like a "tactical" way of obtaining the political power by the working class. For us, it is not possible the reformation and democratisation of the Bourgeois State. On the contrary, the working class and its allies, the poor peasantry and the ruined petty-bourgeoisie, must fight for its complete revolutionary destruction.
In the fight to destroy the capitalist production system, the working class and its party must be the most outstanding fighters for the destruction of all military and police apparatus of the Bourgeois State. They must be substituted by of all the people#s arming. On the base of this principist strategy, it is an important subject of debate for this forum how the revolutionaries should work from inside of the institutions of the Bourgeois State (Parliament, Army, Security Forces, Justice, etc.) in order to deepen the subversive work towards its destruction.
REJECTION OFTHE PROVOCATION AND CALUMNY METHODS
Just at the begining of the sprouting of a new international revolutionary pole from the common initiatives of the LBI and the POR, effort to which we summoned other organisations to add themselves, we reaffirm that all the participants of this meeting must pronounce themselves against any form of calumny, defamation and provocation. These methods are always counterrevolutionary obstacles oriented to prevent the advance of the programmatic debate and the political clarification.
Particularly, we regret this behaviour (typical of the Stalinism) against the LBI and the POR from the Lorism, and specifically from the Brazilian T.POR, who has launched a desperate campaign of calumnies, defamations and provocations.
This liquidacionist file is not new in the history of the revisionism within the Trotskyism. Processes of defamation and calumnies (followed or not by expulsions) have dirtied the Fourth International flag. Among many others, there are the examples of the Hungarian Varga, the Peruvian Napuri, and the Bolivian Bacherer, as well as our own history in the Altamirism!. The rich process of debate between our two currents, facing to the vanguard, and the common experience in the class struggle offers us a level of political cohesion that makes it possible to face and to fight all kind of provocations.
TO FIGHT FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
As it was exposed above, the important existing agreements between the LBI and the POR do not exclude the existence of divergences between both parties.
As we do not understand this international conference as a forum of academic discussions, but like a privileged space in which the currents that vindicate themselves as revolutionaries could clarify their political positions, all those questions in discussion will be widely debate on it.
Our efforts are devoted to openly expose our agreements and divergences to the militant vanguard. This method gives us the certainty of being in the correct way in the fight for a principist Trotkyist regrouping which would advance without ultimatums, free of the sect spirit, in the task of reconstructing the Fourth International.
The present statement is made in a crucial instant of the international political situation. At this moment, as an expression of the capitalist crisis, the imperialistic barbarism unloads its decomposition under the form of bombs and missiles on Yugoslavia, as done before in Iraq. The definition of Lenin of this historical time as "a time of wars and revolutions" is more valid than ever. Only the international mobilisation of the working class with the methods of direct action of masses can restrain the imperialistic wars. This one is also the way towards the Socialist Revolution.
The LBI and the POR understand that the accomplishment and the success of the International Debate's Forum would be a must of all the militants and organisations who fight for breaking the dispersion of the genuine revolutionaries, and who, in each country, develop a restless struggle against the revisionism, the reforming policy and the diverse pseudo-Trotskyists groups which capitulate to the counterrevolutionary apparatuses. This meeting is a small but important initiative which looks for maintaining alive the fight for the defense of the Transitional Program, the Theory of the Permanent Revolution, and the Third and Fourth International's heritage.
We summon the organisations and revolutionary militants who orient themselves in the sense of constructing an internationalist revolutionary party to actively participate in this International Debate's Forum. In the short run, the preparatory commission of the meeting will publish a Discussion Bulletin, which will be opened to the political contributions of the organisations or militants who wish to take part on the conference, and will also announce a calendar, with the diverse organisational details under which this important internationalist and revolutionary activity will be made.
3 of April of 1999
Internationalist Bolshevik Liaison (LBI) - Brazil
Revolutionary Working Party (POR) - Argentine