Theses on Orientation and Perspectives
Resolution Adopted by the
Third Congress of the Fourth International—Paris, April 1951
Written: 1951.
First Published: 1951.
Source: Fourth International, Vol.12 No.6, November-December 1951, pp.184-189.
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido & David Walters, November, 2005
Public Domain: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive 2005. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.
I. Having failed in the many attempts it has made since the last war to arrest the disintegration of its world system and to restore its equilibrium, and finding itself threatened by a new crisis of overproduction, imperialism has plunged anew into accelerated military and political preparation for a new world war.
II. This tendency to war, inherent in the capitalist system in its imperialist phase of decadence and decomposition, naturally was present since the conclusion of the Second World War and the beginning of the “cold war.” However, what essentially characterizes the course recently embarked upon in the policy of the imperialists is the passage from a primarily ideological preparation of the new war (by means of a general anti-Soviet and anti-communist crusade) to more pronounced military and political preparations for war.
This turn is concretized by the essential orientation of the economies of the principal capitalist countries towards armament and war economies, and the subordination of the political character of all their “plans” and ideas (”Marshall Plan,” “Schuman Plan” “Unification of Europe”) to military needs.
III. To this development of imperialist policy the Soviet bureaucracy counterpoises the acceleration of its own armaments program and military plans, the more complete integration of its European satellite countries into its economic and political orbit, efforts to prevent an autonomous development of the Chinese Revolution in order to utilize it for its own ends, and a policy of obstruction by the Communist Parties of the anti-Soviet plan of the bourgeoisie, a policy of harassment and pressure aimed at forcing them into a compromise which would postpone the outbreak of the war.
IV. For fundamental reasons which are inherent in its very nature, the Soviet bureaucracy, despite appearances, fears an abrupt rupture of the equilibrium, dreads the rise and the world triumph of the revolutionary forces even if, in the first period, they are led by the Communist Parties, and it pursues an essentially conservative and defensive policy concentrated above all on the economic, diplomatic and military strengthening of its bastion, the USSR.
From this point of view, the attempt to place the inherently aggressive and expansionist character of imperialist policy, of which war is only an inevitable consequence, on the same plane as that of the Soviet bureaucracy and to speak of similar aspirations on the part of the USA and of the USSR for world domination is to become mired in theoretical confusion from which flows a whole series of basically erroneous political conclusions.
Unfavorable Relationship of Forces
V. Despite the now reinforced orientation of imperialism toward war, the perspective of temporary compromises between the USSR and the USA continues to remain open. Imperialism is aware that the relationship of forces a the present stage is unfavorable for winning a war against the USSR, its European satellites and China, a war which will necessarily be transformed from the beginning into an international civil war. Although this does not mean that the war will necessarily assume the form of civil war in all countries, or simultaneously, or from the beginning in all countries, its dominant general tendency will be that of an international civil war.
Imperialism cannot yet count upon any very effective support from any of the capitalist countries in Western Europe which, in case of war, run the risk in their totality of coming rapidly under the control of the Soviet armies, the Communist Parties or the revolutionary masses.
In an equally brief period, all of Asia can experience a similar fate.
Consequently, in the event of a war unleashed in the present period by imperialism, it would have to envisage a situation where in practice, American imperialism, partially seconded by British imperialism, would have to face a coalition of all of Europe and Asia which had passed under the control of the opposing forces.
The events in Korea have already partly demonstrated that a major war will, in the course of its development, provide a powerful impulse to the radicalization of the American masses by destroying their confidence in the bourgeois parties and the state and by opening the road to revolutionary developments on a gigantic scale.
With such a relationship of forces, the victory of world Imperialism would become problematical in view of the universal chaos.
VI. For this reason, it is much more probable that imperialism will prolong the period of its preparation until it exhausts its ability to avert the economic crisis and to maintain its control over the American masses.
On the other hand, it will be all the more possible for imperialism to pursue this course since the Soviet bureaucracy, for its own reasons, is also anxious to avert the outbreak of a general war and will lend itself to the conclusion of limited or even more extensive partial compromises and to the policy of the division of zones of influence and of mutual concessions.
War Preparations and Effects
VII. The progress that is made in the stabilization of the economy and class relationships in Western Europe, of several key positions in Asia and in the current armaments program will decide, in part, in the years to come the degree of preparation of imperialism for unleashing and winning a general war. If imperialism succeeds in the coming years in stabilizing and seriously rearming the “Atlantic community” (by integrating Western Germany) and in establishing certain important bases in Asia (Japan, Philippines, Korea, Formosa, Indochina, Indonesia, Middle East) and in firmly maintaining its control over the American masses, one could then conclude that there would exist a relationship of forces which would permit imperialism to envisage its victory in a world war as very probable.
VIII. However, these preparations of imperialism will inevitably run up against the resistance of the masses of Western Europe, the Asiatic countries and of the United States itself to a new deterioration of their standard of living, and to the destruction of their rights which the bourgeoisie will require to effect its armaments and war program.
IX. The orientation of capitalism toward a war and armaments economy could, for a certain period, avert a deepening of the crisis of overproduction which has already become a general threat, maintain economic activity at 1950 levels and even surpass them in some instances.
But at the same time, it will set into motion a new inflationary pressure and the debasement of the standard of living of the masses, an important part of their purchasing power being necessary to finance the armaments program of the bourgeoisie.
However, the margins of the unstable equilibrium, so painfully attained by the bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries, are so narrow as to threaten their rapid disappearance in the new conjuncture.
American imperialism itself this time runs the risk of reaching the limits of its capacity to combine, as it has done up to now, a “Welfare State” policy at home with preparations for war and with the support of other capitalist countries.
X. In reality, if the bourgeoisie persists in pursuing its colossal armaments program, which is necessary to temporarily avert the precipitation of an economic crisis, and if it confidently continues to envisage a general war, it will be forced to abandon all pretense of combining a policy of “social justice” with intense preparation for war and will be obliged to lower the standard of 1iving of the masses everywhere, including the United States.
It will only be able to succeed in this task by smashing the inevitable resistance of the masses in the course of a series of far-reaching struggles which will definitively decide what possibilities the bourgeoisie have of conducting the war.
Despite the Stalinist and reformist leaderships of the workers’ movement in the countries of Western Europe, and despite the treacherous role of the trade union bureaucracy in the US, no section of the bourgeoisie is yet able to envisage its success in the years immediately ahead in inflicting a series of decisive defeats upon the proletariat and in establishing “authoritarian,” dictatorial or fascist regimes which would be capable of conducting the war.
That holds especially true for Western Germany, Italy, France and England. The reaction of the American masses would of course have a special importance and could produce deep-going changes in the world situation, in the pace and preparations for war.
XI. For the movement of the Fourth International to fulfill its historic task, in the future as it has in the past, to successfully penetrate the mass movement and adopt a correct attitude on the perspectives of war, it must reaffirm and refine its programmatic positions on a series of questions, among others that of the USSR and of Stalinism.
The positions taken by anti-Stalinist tendencies in the workers’ movement other than the Trotskyists, and the evolution of the policy of the Yugoslav government and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the Korean war, have once again demonstrated that, in face of the evolution of the international situation and the perspectives of war, it is impossible to adopt a correct class attitude without a correct evacuation of the USSR and of Stalinism, of their character and of the perspectives of their development.
Evolution of the USSR
XII. Despite the extreme degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy, the USSR has not become a capitalist country, and the structure of its statified and planned economy has been maintained. This economic structure, made possible by the October Revolution and the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, is not subject to the laws of finance capital as defined by the Leninist theory of imperialism. It is fundamentally, qualitatively different from capitalism, even in its most developed form. Tendencies toward statification and economic planning exist in the capitalist system but they are never completely realized and they remain subordinated to the interests and antagonisms of private monopoly groups. On the other hand, these tendencies are constantly undermined by a multitude of small and medium entrepreneurs who daily reproduce private capitalism and stand in the way of all real planning. The statification of all the means of production and the planned economy which distinguish the USSR and, to a lesser degree, the “People’s Democracies” where the process has begun, are not the result of an organic evolution of the former capitalist regime into state capitalism but the product of a specific class struggle—although deformed in the case of the “People’s Democracies” by the militaro-bureaucratic intervention of Stalinism—which has culminated in the overthrow of the possessing classes and of imperialism.
The changes in the social and economic structure of these countries result from abrupt changes in the relations of class forces following a struggle, and not as the climax of a general evolution of capitalism toward state capitalism. Despite the extremely parasitic character of the Soviet bureaucracy, which has become a major brake on economic development, it cannot be said that the productive forces in the USSR are stagnating or have ceased to progress.
This is a supplementary proof of the possibilities of the statified and planned economy which the bureaucracy has not yet been able to destroy completely.
XIII. The Soviet bureaucracy has not become a capitalist class nor is it a new type of class in its major section, it remains attached to tile present economic structure of the USSR, of whose advantages it is aware and from which it derives its privileges. It is subject to pressures, struggles and differentiations in its ranks, produced by the heterogeneity of its strata, the pressure of the Soviet masses and the pressures of the international proletariat and of imperialism. It continues to embody and to express in its policy the dual and contradictory elements, in their dialectic unity, of its present situation as a privileged caste raised to power in a state that is a workers’ state in its origin and anti-capitalist in its structure. It cannot surrender to imperialism without disappearing as such in the USSR. On the one hand, it cannot rest on the proletariat and on the extension of the world revolution which would stimulate the struggle of the Soviet masses to overthrow it. This extension would on the other hand, by the organization and rapid development of the world productive forces, remove the objective reasons for the existence and especially for the omnipotence of any bureaucracy. The Kremlin pursues a policy of balancing itself between imperialism and the proletariat, utilizing one against the other in order above all to preserve its positions in the USSR.
Nature of the Communist Parties
XIV. The domination of the Soviet bureaucracy over the leaderships of the Communist Parties was realized through the degeneration of the Third International, whose rank and file remained profoundly attached to the October Revolution and the USSR.
Manipulating these leaderships as it wills, the Soviet bureaucracy utilizes the Communist Parties as instruments of its international policy. The leaderships of these parties lend themselves to this game because they are themselves composed of bureaucratized elements deriving their influence over the masses and their privileges above all from the fact that they appear to the masses as the chosen representatives of the October Revolution and the USSR, “the socialist fatherland.”
However, wherever the Communist Parties remain mass organizations, still embracing, especially after the last war, the most revolutionary section of the working class and the poor peasants in numerous countries of Europe and of Asia, they cannot allow themselves to be reduced to being, under all conditions, mere agencies for the transmission and execution of the orders of the Soviet bureaucracy.
It will not be possible to adopt a correct policy toward them nor will it be possible to explain the case of the CPY and other analogous cases which have presented themselves and will inevitably present themselves in the future, particularly in the perspective of a war against the USSR, if the dialectic of the Communist Parties and their relations with the movement of the masses is not thoroughly understood.
XV. Neither in the leaderships bound to the Soviet bureaucracy, nor in their base, nor in their relations with the working class and the masses of the poor in general are the Communist Parties exactly reformist parties. They embody contradictory elements which have been clearly revealed since the German-Soviet Pact of 1939.
Between imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy they invariably line up—without notable desertions—on the side of the Soviet bureaucracy, even in its sharpest zigzags.
On the other hand, insofar as they are tied to a real revolutionary movement of the masses, they are subject to its pressure and may, under certain favorable conditions, go beyond the aims set for them by the Soviet bureaucracy and project a revolutionary orientation. This specifically means that parties placed in such favorable conditions may possibly see themselves obliged to undertake a struggle for power against the possessing classes and imperialism.
It would be anti-Marxist not to recognize this possibility, proved by the experience of the CPY and in part by that of the CP of China, and to affirm that the weight of the bureaucratic apparatus will prove more decisive under all conditions than the pressure of the movement of the masses.
In the long run objective conditions determine the character and dynamics of the movement of the masses which, raised to a certain level, can overcome all subjective obstacles on the road to the revolution. This conception continues to be the basis of our revolutionary optimism and clarifies our attitude toward the Communist Parties.
In the event of powerful revolutionary uprisings of the masses, like those which occurred during the war in Yugoslavia, in China, and recently in Korea, and like those which will inevitably occur in the perspective described above, it is not excluded that certain Communist Parties with the bulk of their forces can be pushed out of the strict orbit of the Soviet bureaucracy and con project a revolutionary orientation.
From that moment on, they would cease to be strictly Stalinist parties, mere instruments of the policy of the Soviet bureaucracy, and would lend themselves to a differentiation and to a politically autonomous course.
In the event of new revolutionary uprisings led by the Communist Parties, the Fourth International cannot permit itself a repetition of the errors of evaluation committed in the past regarding Yugoslavia or China. On the contrary, conscious of the gigantic struggle which will unfold under conditions of a general war—so long as the relationship of forces in Europe and in Asia is not seriously altered in favor of the bourgeoisie and of imperialism—and of the struggle already going on in several colonial countries, it should give increased attention to the evolution of the Communist Parties of these countries and find the means of penetrating the mass movement and of influencing the ranks of these parties.
Stalinist “Expansionism”
XVI. If one correctly understands the character of the Soviet bureaucracy, the CPs, their interrelationships and their relations with the mass movement, one cannot conclude that Stalinism, i.e., the Soviet bureaucracy, has any historic future whatever. Those who speak of the possibility of a world expansion of Stalinism and of a possible era of the rule of “bureaucratic capitalism” or of Stalinist “bureaucratic collectivism” proceed from fundamentally erroneous theoretical considerations regarding the USSR and Stalinism. They deduce Soviet “expansion” and its so-called tendency toward world domination either from a “monopoly capitalist” structure of the USSR which, as in other countries dominated by big finance capital, impels it to an imperialist policy, or from the “totalitarian” character of this policy. On the other hand, they consider that the socio-economic premises for a bureaucracy like the one in the USSR already exist in the movement of the Communist Parties allowing for the establishment everywhere, if these parties are victorious, of a political power similar to the one in the USSR.
In reality the Soviet bureaucracy does not at all pursue a systematic policy of “expansion,” and every enlargement of “Stalinist” power in the world introduces, on the contrary, along with a transitory strengthening of Stalinist prestige, the elements of the disintegration of this power.
XVII. The extension of the influence of the Soviet bureaucracy into the East European “buffer zone” is not a proof of the systematic policy of “expansion” to which the Soviet bureaucracy, just like imperialism, found itself driven. The Soviet bureaucracy took hold of these countries only as a result of particularly favorable conditions created by the war, thanks to the agreement it was able to conclude with “democratic” imperialism and thanks to the extreme decomposition of the capitalist regimes in these countries which did not require any large-scale revolutionary struggles for their overthrow.
Even under these extremely favorable conditions, the bureaucracy proceeded prudently in these countries, still showed itself ready at the outset to make concessions to imperialism, and consolidated its absolute control over the masses by stages before deciding to hasten the integration of these countries into its economic and political orbit.
In all other capitalist countries, which it considered in the imperialist sphere of influence, and even in countries like Yugoslavia, Greece and China where the movement of the masses had already progressively destroyed the direct power of the bourgeoisie, the Soviet bureaucracy sabotaged the revolutionary development and the seizure of power.
Afterwards, the integration now being effected by the bureaucracy in the “buffer states” required in several cases, especially where the CP represented a real force connected to a real mass movement (as in Bulgaria, in Czechoslovakia and partly in Poland), the destruction of the native apparatuses of the CP and their replacement by GPU-type functionaries, directly managed from the Kremlin.
The Struggle against Stalinism
XVIII. By its very nature, the Soviet bureaucracy is fundamentally opposed to the development of the revolutionary forces in the world, and it is excluded, even in the case of a general war against the USSR, that the bureaucracy can impel the CPs to take power in areas of the world that it will not be able to control, among others, for example, the USA, which, however, is the citadel of imperialism.
While the counter-revolutionary role of the Soviet bureaucracy remains unchanged, either as concerns the betrayal of a workers’ revolution or the stifling of an independent proletarian movement, its possibility of successfully performing this role is determined not by its subjective desires and intentions but by an objectively revolutionary situation, which because of its vast scope and intensity becomes increasingly difficult to destroy or to maintain within rigid bureaucratic channels and police controls. The developments in Yugoslavia and China are only a prefiguration of the events to come in the course of the coming international civil war.
It is only from such a profound understanding of the nature of the Soviet bureaucracy that one can get rid of the specter of “Stalinist domination,” expose the world counterrevolutionary role of the Soviet bureaucracy, grasp and exploit the concrete contradictory relationships which exist between the Soviet bureaucracy, the CPs and the movement of the masses, and fundamentally support every revo1utionary, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement which still further restricts the base of imperialism in the world even if, in the first stages, this movement is led by a leadership of Stalinist persuasion.
It is on this basis and through this tactic that the revolutionary proletariat will overcome Stalinism.
XIX. Against the attempts of imperialism to reestablish an equilibrium and to temporarily resolve its crisis by reintroducing the markets of the USSR, the “People’s Democracies” of Europe, Yugoslavia, China, the Asiatic areas in revolt into its orbit, the Fourth International will counterpoise the defense of all these countries and of the colonial revolutions. (This conception of defense does not apply to Eastern Germany and the Soviet occupation zone in Austria.) The task of overthrowing the Soviet bureaucracy and of breaking its grip on the workers’ movement cannot in any way be confided to imperialism.
On the other hand, the defense of these countries and of the colonial revolutions in Asia, which are no longer under the direct control of imperialism, not only signifies working to maintain and aggravate the disequilibrium and the crisis of imperialism and, therefore, to strengthen objective revolutionary possibilities. It signifies at the same time in the long run undermining the power of the Soviet bureaucracy from within the revolutionary camp, for only the broadening and the strengthening of the world revolutionary crisis will weaken the power of the bureaucracy and will open perspectives for its elimination in a progressive way.
XX. The choice for the proletarian and colonial masses is not between the mutilated and disfigured bourgeois “democracy,” which still exists in several metropolitan countries, and the yoke of the Soviet bureaucracy.
In order to survive, imperialism is obliged to constantly lower the standard of living of its own masses in the metropolitan countries and to steadily destroy their rights; it condemns the proletariat and the colonial masses of the countries it controls to a starvation regime and to open police dictatorship, like that of France, Tsaldaris, Chiang Kai-shek, Bao-Dai, Syngman Rhee.
Under such regimes, Stalinist propaganda can find a response, and in the absence of another force and a genuinely proletarian solution, the masses of these countries will continue to be influenced by the CPs.
Strategy of Revolutionary Proletariat
XXI. To be effective, and to really contribute to the march of history, the policy of the revolutionary proletariat should begin not from what ought to be but from what is; it must know how to pass from one situation to a higher stage while preserving all the gains of past revolutionary struggles. It should be able to exploit the contradictory and transitory elements of a complex, devious development which has been made even more difficult by the degeneration of the USSR and by Stalinism.
The defense of the USSR, of the “People’s Democracies” of Europe, of Yugoslavia and of China does not mean the defense of the Soviet bureaucracy or of the policy of the Stalinist leaderships of the CPs. The defense of tile USSR is a strategic line (for the Fourth International) and not a “slogan” as such (Resolution of the Second World Congress on the USSR and Stalinism) and its tactical applications remain subordinate to the free development of the movement of the masses against all attempts by the Soviet bureaucracy, the Russian army and the Stalinist leaders to strangle and to smash it.
Nowhere in the Soviet orbit does the proletariat govern directly and nowhere in this orbit has the overthrow of the capitalist regime and of imperialism opened the road to a true development toward socialism and communism. The political expropriation of the proletariat principally by the Soviet bureaucracy constitutes a major brake on such a development and keeps the proletariat under conditions of growing inequality and heightened bureaucratic and police oppression, more onerous than under certain “democratic” forms of the bourgeois regime.
However, in order to overcome this situation in which the overthrow of capitalism and of imperialism was followed by the political expropriation of the proletariat, it is necessary to combine the struggle against the bureaucracy with the preservation of these achievements: the overthrow of the capitalist regime, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, of feudalism, of imperialism, the statification and planning of the economy.
Only the revolutionary proletariat is capable of carrying on such a combined struggle imposed by the dialectic of evolution, while the victory of imperialism over the USSR, the “People’s Democracies,” Yugoslavia, China and the colonial revolutions would signify a defeat of the world revolution, a historic step backward for the whole revolutionary process of our epoch.
Socialism and Bureaucracy
XXII. The Fourth International has not and will not cease to work for the overthrow of the Soviet bureaucracy and its agents in the buffer zone by the revolutionary proletariat as well as to combat and unmask the myths of the Soviet bureaucracy and of Stalinism in general concerning the “victory of socialism in the USSR” and “socialism on the road to realization” in the “People’s Democracies.”
These myths monstrously distort the reality of the conditions of the proletariat in these countries.
The Fourth International struggles so that the proletariat can lead the fight for power and direct the revolution so that the conquest of power can take place effectively in the name of the entire class, by its direct class organs: party, trade unions and soviets, against all bureaucracy.
It declares that free socialist development is possible only on this basis.
On the other hand, the proletariat will succeed in this task and will completely avoid the bureaucratic deformation of its institutions and especially of its power, only insofar as the revolutionary camp is broadened in the world and the revolution conquers more and more of the industrially most advanced countries.
”Socialism in one country” is not only a petty bourgeois utopia; it also implies an eventual bureaucratic and inevitable opportunist degeneration of the proletarian power.
A proletarian revolution in the USA, for example, bringing to bear the weight of the tremendous American productive apparatus in the interests of world socialist development, will greatly ease the transition period of backward countries and provide an important corrective against inevitable tendencies toward bureaucratic deformation.
Tasks of Fourth International
XXIII. In the great struggles which will inevitably be induced by the concrete preparations of imperialism for war, resulting in new sacrifices for the masses and serious blows to their liberties, the task of our movement is to penetrate much deeper into the mass movement. It must do this in order to facilitate a revolutionary outcome and to occupy the best possible positions with a view to the role it will have to play especially in the gigantic revolutionary crisis which will arise in the event of a general war so long as the relationship of forces in Europe and in Asia is not profoundly changed in favor of the bourgeoisie and of imperialism.
In a series of countries where Stalinism and reformism do not constitute major obstacles, our movement will strive in the next years to become the principal revolutionary leadership.
In countries where the reformist parties by far outdistance all other working class formations and are the polar force for the great majority of the proletariat (England, Belgium, Australia) our movement should attempt to integrate itself in these organizations, to organize and develop a conscious left wing in their ranks.
In countries where the majority of the working class still follows the CP, our organizations, necessarily independent, should orient toward more systematic work among the ranks of these parties and the masses they influence.
In the countries of the “People’s Democracies,” our supporters who are not known should try to integrate themselves in the CPs and to remain there, as well as in every proletarian mass organization, in order to take advantage of the revolutionary possibilities which will develop above all in the event of war.
In China, our forces, wherever possible, should try to enter the CP and to elaborate a concrete program which can favor a proletarian and anti-bureaucratic orientation of this party, or at least the formation of a broad tendency along this line within the party and among the masses it influences.
In all other Asian countries in revolt where the CP heads the mass movement, our movement should also be oriented toward work in the CPs and the organizations which they influence, so as not to cut ourselves off from the movement of the masses and to be able better to exploit the events of the war.
Intermediary forms, imposed be the peculiarities of the workers’ movement in each country, will naturally be necessary here and there. However, the general line remains that of the penetration of the general movement of the class as it actually is.
XXIV. The inevitable aspect of civil war which a war unleashed against the USSR will acquire, at least in Europe and Asia under the conditions described above, emphasizes the special interest work among the CPs should have for us as well as the need for a clear and unequivocal position on the Soviet bureaucracy, the CPs, the defense of the USSR, of the “People’s Democracies,” of China and of the colonial revolutions against imperialism.
Only our movement, thanks to its position and to its entire past, is able to envisage the realization of its junction with the revolutionary forces which will arise in the CPs and with the masses they influence in this crisis, to impel them into a resolute struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and, at the same time, against the Soviet bureaucracy.
For the same reasons, only our movement will be able from now on to exploit the crisis of Stalinism in a manner favorable for the building of a new revolutionary leadership.
New Course of Trotskyism
XXV. Between the Second and the Third World Congresses, the aim set by the Second Congress of penetrating the real movement of the masses has in large part been realized.
Because of this, the whole physiognomy of our movement has been transformed: the maturing of the leaderships, the proletarianization of the organizations, a real knowledge of anti effective exploitation of the peculiarities of the workers’ movement in each country.
The new course of Trotskyism is a reality and the best pledge of its future as the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat and as the conscious expression of the communist movement of our epoch.
The problem now is to consolidate and to amplify this process with the aim of successfully participating in the decisive battles to come and of aiding to the best of our ability with maximum effect the objective revolutionary process in a mumbling world.
The question of the creation of a new revolutionary leadership resolving the present crisis of the workers’ movement and of all humanity has always been envisaged by our movement as being closely linked to the existence of objectively favorable conditions for the propulsion of powerful revolutionary mass struggles. In contrast with the period of prostration of the workers’ movement which we experienced in the years preceding the last war, these conditions now exist and give rise to struggles unprecedented in the past so far as their scope and globality is concerned. It is through this period and its struggles that a new revolutionary vanguard will be forged as well as the selection of a new revolutionary leadership which will make its own the ideas and the program of the Fourth International.
Last updated on 14 April 2009