ACR has joined the Fourth International

As part of our ongoing commitment to revolutionary ecosocialism, AntiCapitalist Resistance has joined the Fourth International (FI). With the growth of the authoritarian populist right, the collapse of the biosphere and rapid global warming, the worsening global crisis means that we must get organised across borders. From solidarity with the Kazakh uprising in 2022, the conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine to building links with ecosocialists in numerous countries through the Global Ecosocialist Network, internationalism is at ACR’s heart. Being an isolated group in England and Cymru/Wales was not part of our perspectives – we need a practical internationalism, not just fine words on a page.

Some of our members were already in the Fourth International through their affiliation with Socialist Resistance, one of the founding organisations of ACR. After several internal discussions within ACR, we agreed to apply for membership as a section together with comrades in Scotland. The International agreed  upon this at its 18th World Congress, held in Belgium at the end of February.

The Fourth International was set up by revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his allies in 1938. It is named the Fourth International because there had been three others before. The First International (1864-1876) was led by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and brought together working class organisations and revolutionaries worldwide. The Second (Socialist) International was founded in 1889 and brought together mass socialist parties like the Labour Party in Britain and the German SDP. This international split at the start of World War One when the different national parties supported their capitalist classes in the war. The Third (Communist) International was set up in 1919 after the Russian Revolution to collect revolutionaries in sympathy with the ideas of the Bolsheviks, who set up communist parties worldwide dedicated to getting rid of capitalism.

The Third International politically degenerated during the 1920s and 30s after Stalin took power in Russia, becoming bureaucratically dominated by the Soviet state and subordinated to Stalin’s foreign policy goals. Trotsky and his sympathisers attempted to challenge this by forming a new, fourth international, which was in the tradition of revolutionary socialists who opposed both capitalism and Stalinism and who fought for consistent internationalism.

ACR is itself a product of the regroupment of different socialists from different traditions, so we are not expecting all our members to defend every historic position that the FI has taken. We join the FI because of its clear commitment to ecosocialism as a strategic approach to the crisis of the modern age and its openness to help regroup revolutionary Marxists and other class struggle activists.

At the same World Congress, the FI admitted the MES in Brazil, an organisation from a different revolutionary background, and admitted Solidarity in the USA as a full section. Fraternal relations with Socialist Action were ended due to their pro-Moscow position around the Ukraine war.

ACR is represented in the international leadership of the FI, and we are keen to deepen our connections with ecosocialist revolutionaries worldwide and learn from their struggles. We will work for wider regroupment and to build mass revolutionary organisations that can make a difference in the late capitalist hellscape we live and struggle in.

The Fourth International has also published a report of the Congress here. You can get the resolutions and other documents from the Congress at this link.

Originally posted on 10th March 2025 at https://anticapitalistresistance.org/acr-has-joined-the-fourth-international/



Why do socialists organise internationally?

Dave Kellaway examines the arguments for eco socialists to be part of a revolutionary international

‘I mean you guys have less than a thousand members in most countries and you want to build an International?  Esperanto has more chance becoming an international language than you lot building an International with any relevance.’

How often have revolutionary Marxists heard this retort? Mind you the same objection is often made to attempts to building a revolutionary socialist party just in one nation. Members of Anti*Capitalist Resistance are meeting in the New Year to decide whether to fully join up to the Fourth International. So what is the point of building a revolutionary International?

  1. An International is the historical legacy of our movement

Marx himself set up the First International, if you read the Communist Manifesto it is written as a draft programme for an international party – the Communist League, precursor of the International – for its Congress in 1848. Already in that year it was translated into a number of European languages. It was never a document for one nation. Given that at that time capitalism was at quite an early state of globalisation it is remarkable how far sighted Marx and Engels were. Since then capitalism has come to dominate the planet, even recapturing societies like the Soviet Union that had begun a transition to socialism to its rule. If capitalism is a global system since corporate investment and imperialism knows no borders then workers of all the world have to unite. The Manifesto ends with that slogan.  It states that workers have a ‘world to win’. The chains of nationalism had to be broken.

Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxembourg broke from the Second International over the capitulation of the German Social Democrats and their co-thinkers elsewhere to their own bourgeoisie’s support for the inter-imperialist First World War.  At that time the revolutionary internationalist position was a very small minority.  However the victory of the Russian Revolution and its impact among workers and peasants worldwide enabled Lenin and Trotsky to set up the Third International. This functioned as a revolutionary force for change with its parties having a real mass base. It did not get everything right, but if you read the documents of the first four congresses there are rich debates about revolutionary tactics and strategy that still have some relevance today.

Stalin’s rise to power in the Soviet Union and the physical repression of Trotsky, the Left Opposition and any other challenge to his rule resulted in the destruction of the democratic Third International. Thereafter Stalin set up the Comintern which was totally controlled from Moscow and defended the interests of the bureaucratic dictatorship rather than those of the international working class.

In the Spanish Civil war, for example,  the Comintern’s role included dividing the anti-Franco forces. Independent revolutionary parties like the POUM were repressed. Its leader, Andres Nin, and other fighters, were murdered by Stalin’s agents. Trotsky, before his assassination by a Stalinist operative, set up the Fourth International in 1938 with the few revolutionary currents which were both anti-Stalinist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

2. Ecological crises make international organisation even more relevant today

Over the last few decades we have become increasingly aware that capitalism does not just exploit the majority of people for profit but threatens all human, animal and plant life because of its never-ending need to grow and exploit the natural world.  Marxists, revolutionaries and eco activists are more and more seeing themselves in practice as ecosocialists.  Pollution does not recognise borders.  Extractive and fossil fuel companies operate indiscriminately throughout the globe.

Such an eco-socialist international is a change from the one that Marx, Lenin, Luxembourg, Trotsky envisaged. Even the new post-1968 New Left was slow to see the importance of the ecological struggle.  A new revolutionary international does not just aim for working people to own and control the means of production. We also need an ecological plan to remodel production in harmony with Mother Earth. The bureaucratic dictatorship in the former Soviet Union polluted and destroyed nature just as much as the capitalists in the west.  For example industrialised cotton farming destroyed the Aral Sea.

A revolutionary international today has to interrogate traditional notions of growth and abundance put forward by our movement. So the need for a revolutionary International does not just depend on some sort of ritualistic bow to our Marxist or Leninist forebears. It has to respond to today’s conditions and how they affect workers and peasants.

3. Forming internationalists

Building international parties helps to break down ingrained nationalist/imperialist reflexes that can even affect Marxist radicals who proclaim themselves internationalists. Centuries of empire, colonialism and imperialism will leave deep ideological and psychological traces, just as sexist behaviour can persist among radicals.  Actively building an international party can lesson these risks.

It is interesting how the experience of some currents building internationals can replicate this ideology as the strongest section with funds that support the smaller groups becomes the motherboard of these currents. The self-designated centre essentially decides the political line at all times, intervening in its satellite groups if they go off message. Getting real input and balanced leadership that includes the global south is difficult although the extension of new technology can help.

Class struggle parties emerged to the left of reformism such as Syriza (Greece) or Podemos (Spain) in recent decades. They were not part of an international current and therefore more likely to succumb to pressures to join ‘national unity’ governments. Look at the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) in Gemany, led by Sahra Wageneckt, which split from Die Linke on a nationalist, anti-migrant line.

Groups and individuals who are inside revolutionary international currents can also do the same – this happened in Brazil and Sri Lanka with the Fourth International (FI) in the past. However by establishing structures and education that consciously operates to develop an internationalist culture you can try and minimise such losses.

4. Do you need a major breakthrough in one country first before building an International?

Some people on the left may accept the need for an international  abstractly but say it is premature to set one up now or to give it too much priority.   Don’t we have to concentrate on making an anti-capitalist breakthrough in one country which can then provide a resource and a model for revolutionaries everywhere?  Look at how the victory of the  Russian revolution really boosted the structures of the Third International. The period covering the first four congresses of the Third International was the only time we saw mass parties structured in an International.

Isaac Deutscher, the great biographer of Trotsky, argued it was premature to set up the Fourth International in 1938.  But it is difficult to argue that it was any easier after the Second World War when Stalinist parties became stronger given the role of the Soviet Union in fighting Hitler and the CPs in the resistance movements.

Once you recognise that the revolutionary continuity is fatally broken you have to start again as Lenin did in 1914 with meagre support. The fact that some continuity through the Fourth International was maintained through to the post-1968 New Left meant that that generation was able to have access to an anti-Stalinist, revolutionary tradition going back to classical Marxism.

This argument is a bit like people saying in a national context that it is premature to set up a revolutionary organisation before there is a class struggle mass movement and a higher consciousness among masses of workers.  The problem here is that you cannot leave it all to the last minute. Revolutionary crises will not provide the basis for a revolution if you have not achieved a specific weight of revolutionary cadre who can provide leadership to take the revolution forward.

How many times have we seen mass upsurges shake bourgeois states only to evaporate due to a lack of a conscious vanguard?  It is also true that we should not get ahead of ourselves and have small groups proclaim that we already are the revolutionary nucleus and people should just join us.

5. Why an International is useful for revolutionary activists

It is useful both for political discussion and for taking action that has a political impact.  Revolutionary consciousness benefits from regular structured debate with others throughout the world. A functioning international provides that training, the opportunities to regularly talk and discuss. Debates documented inside the FI on women’s liberation, socialist democracy and ecosocialism have often been useful for wide layers of activists. Sometimes these issues were taken up before they became more mainstream in the wider movement. Books and publications sponsored by the IIRE (International Institute for Research and Education) and International Viewpoint/Inprecor help diffuse these ideas.

International structures are not just about generating political analysis or even communiques on the issues of the moment but can help coordinate actions internationally.  The FI was rebuilt partly through its solidarity with the liberation movements in Cuba, Algeria and Vietnam. Later it made huge efforts to build solidarity with Nicaragua (in its radical phase), Solidarnosc in Poland and the 1982 British miners strike to just cite a few examples. Today comrades in Italy are at the centre of solidarity with the GKN factory occupation/cooperative.  We have organised international meetings to share the experiences of organising in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

An international can quickly disseminate practical information about certain struggles.  Tours of comrades involved in exemplary battles can be set up in a number of countries. Another useful activity is to bring together young activists in an annual youth camp that has a different country as the venue each year. Groups or individuals from the global south can be subsidized to a degree by sections in the more advanced capitalist countries. This applies also to the international educational schools that are run in Amsterdam with its dedicated base. These schools are open to activists who are not members of the FI.

We can benefit too from sharing articles written by comrades across the world and published in the International Viewpoint website.  One thing that can be very irritating is when people from Britain pontificate about events in other places without giving voice to the activists in those countries.  For example some people on the left here reduce the invasion and occupation of Ukraine to an inter-imperialist conflict provoked by US pressure on Russia. Contacts with sympathisers inside Ukraine allow us to counter such simplistic analyses and restore agency to Ukrainians.

With a functioning international structure, you can build a political culture that starts from understanding the conditions and interests of workers and peasants in different countries first hand. This is particularly important given the influence of campist sentiments today on the left.  For campists revolutionary action is mainly determined by the conflict between the imperialist powers. If the main and only task is to weaken US interests that the needs and interests of workers in countries on the wrong side of this divide are sacrificed. So some left wing people defended Assad as a lesser evil since the US was attacking him. Russian bombing and war crimes there were downplayed or ignored because Putin was supporting a regime that supposedly was part of an axis of resistance against the US and Israel. They see the overthrow of Assad as a massive defeat for workers.

6.  An International that does not sound or look weird

Listening to Aaron Bastani on Novara media’s review of the year (well worth watching) I was impressed by his final comment about the need for the left to build an anti-capitalist current that is not ‘weird’.  I think he is absolutely right about the need for the left to be accessible and approachable for people outside the left bubble. This applies to our championing of the need for an International.

The first maxim must be: do not pretend to be the world party of the international proletariat, particularly do not proclaim this on your publications. Talk like that puts you in the weirdo camp.

We must accept where we are. While we say we must not put off building an International today we see ourselves as a possible component of a much bigger one. Regrouping with currents coming from within or outside the Trotskyist tradition is essential. Indeed officially the FI does not define itself as Trotskyist and there are sections that come from Maoist or other traditions.

In Britain both the Socialist Party with the CWI (Committee for a Workers International) and the SWP with the IST (International Socialist Tendency) organises with its co-thinkers internationally. Neither is as present internationally as the FI or as structured, but we do not rule out working towards a convergence with such currents.

An international has to reject any pseudo Leninist idea that some sort of centre has to determine the political line to take in each country. Each section has to determine its own strategy and tactics. It is only when a section in a country decides to cross class lines by for example joining a bourgeois government or breaking a strike that the International leadership would take action repudiating it. Just to give an example of democratic functioning today in the FI. There are nuances today on the line to take on Ukraine. While all groups call for the withdrawal of Russian troops not everybody agrees with Ukraine getting arms from Western governments. Publications of the International reflect that pluralism while making clear when positions are actually taken by international bodies.

Finally we should also keep in mind another reason for international organisation. The far right are organised internationally and they have a lot more resources than we do. Steve Bannon and others are always organising international meetings and funnelling money from their rich backers to groups around the world. Money from Putin’s Russia also finds its way into the coffers of the far right. The left should organise on an international level, whether this is us as revolutionary ecosocialists or broader mass organisations like trade unions or Labour parties.

Dave Kellaway is on the Editorial Board of Anti*Capitalist Resistance, a member of Socialist Resistance, and Hackney and Stoke Newington Labour Party, a contributor to International Viewpoint and Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres.

Originally posted as Why do socialists organise internationally? – Anticapitalist Resistance by Anti*Capitalist Resisitance on 30th December 2024



Fund drive for the Congress of the Fourth International

The Fourth International is organizing its world congress in February 2025. This will be an opportunity for around 200 delegates from all over the world to meet and exchange views.

We note that the world is particularly complicated to grasp at the moment, with the multiple crises that capitalism is experiencing, combining economic, social, political and ecological crises, the rise of the far right, and so on. Comparing the situations in different countries, as we are doing by exchanging texts and organizing discussions in all the countries before we meet for the congress, is extremely useful for better analysis and action.

To meet these challenges, we are discussing a new Manifesto for the Fourth International based on our ecosocialist orientation and outlining the world we want to build. We will also discuss the state of the world as it is around our international resolution with two specific focuses on Palestine and Ukraine, our activity in the social movements of the exoploited and oppressed where we build class struggle forces, and of course strengthening our own International.

Organizing a congress costs a lot of money, because we have to have a residential centre where the delegates are housed, a full team of interpreters and secretariat, and subsidize comrades from the Global South – from Asia, Africa, Latin America – for their transport tickets, which have become much more expensive since the covid pandemic.

If you can contribute financially, please make your transfers to

Account Name: A.F.E.S.I.

(Association pour la Formation, l’Education, la Solidarité Internationale)

IBAN: BE03 0013 9285 0884

BIC/SWIFT code: GEBABEBB

And of course, take part in the discussions in your country!

A video :

https://fb.watch/vD3eKIZ8Gk/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DB6ABVOKxyw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://youtu.be/SbNvi751B6I?feature=shared



Documents of the Fourth International

Manifesto of Revolutionary Marxism in the Age of Capitalist Ecological and Social Destruction

International Situation; Social Movements; Role & Tasks; Minority Texts

Texts submitted for discussion at the 18th World Congress of the Fourth International by the International Committee of
the Fourth International



Two years of war : Statement of Fourth International on Ukraine

This statement was adopted by the International Committee of the Fourth International on 25 February 2024.

a) In the context of the anniversary of 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, we express our global internationalist and systematic support for Ukraine’s right to self-determination and right to resist occupation and oppression, as we express it for all peoples whoever be the colonial oppressor.

b) We affirm our political independence from the neoliberal Zelensky government. That is why we aim to develop direct internationalist links from below with the left, feminist, LGBTQ+, social and environmental struggles and currents within the popular resistance to build a free, democratic therefore pluralist, independent nation.

c) Therefore we continue to give our support to the demands expressed by left political and trade-unionist Ukrainian currents:

·       An immediate end to shelling, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine;

·       to increase the resources consolidating the public services and social protection so much needed in the context of war and for the future independent Ukraine, and resist the ongoing attempts by the neoliberal government of Ukraine to use the war as an excuse for dismantling public services and destroying social protection

·       The need to abolish all forms of “aid” conditional on privatizations;

·       The support for material and financial aid which does not increase the Ukrainian foreign debt, in line with our support for the demand of cancellation of the existing debt;

·       A general orientation to use funds devoted to help Ukraine resistance and reconstruction in order to contribute to building a social and democratic European project, which means the reduction of inequalities and therefore opposition to the logics of fiscal and social dumping and “competition”;

·       The increase of Ukrainian wages – individual and social income – as an outlet for Ukraine industrial and agricultural production is to be radically opposed to the ongoing dominant policy (which is trying to increase Ukrainian “competitivity” in exports by reducing taxes and wages)

d) Our support to Ukrainian armed and non-armed resistance against the Russian invasion also means our solidarity with all citizens of the Russian Federation who refuse that war and are repressed because of their democratic stance.

e) We oppose the logic of ‘Great Russian power’ and domination over neighbouring countries. The victory of the free and democratic Ukrainian people is organically favourable to the emergence of a pluralist, peaceful and democratic Russian Federation and union of the peoples of Europe.

The Russian aggression and threats against its neighbours creates more support for NATO in those countries. The defeat of Russian aggression would therefore facilitate the struggle against NATO. We oppose the use of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an excuse to increase military budgets. We have always been, and continue to be against any logic of counter-posed military blocs or zones of influence. We struggle for the dissolving of military blocs that are in the service of imperialism such as NATO and the Russian-led CSTO alliance. In our struggle against imperialism and for the self-determination of all peoples we fight for the defeat of Putin’s project.

We reaffirm such a programme for the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine helping to combine our full support to Ukrainian resistance to the war and to neoliberal policies with promoting new European and international progressive projects integrating eco-socialist anticapitalist dimensions.

Republished from: https://fourth.international/en/510/europe/588

Photo Copyright: National Police of Ukraine – Creative Commons BY 4.0



In solidarity with people’s struggles against unbridled imperialism, for the liberation of the peoples and saving the environment

Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International adopted on 25 October 2023

1. The contradictions of global capitalism continue to bring forth brutal wars and occupation. Threatened by economic and political crisis, capitalist governments, bearers of racist, patriarchal and imperial ideologies, construct external and internal enemies, provoking wars and continuing oppression. Such conflicts are part of the global logic of neo-liberal capitalism, the logic of intense economic and political competition, of widening inequalities and of the chaos it brings at every level. The wars we are facing are linked to the global crisis of capitalism and the resulting headlong rush into conflict between rival imperialist powers.

2. Since 24 February 2022, with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, aiming at the total subjugation of Ukraine, Russian imperialism led by Putin has passed a qualitative milestone in its war against the peoples, against all those who oppose its authoritarian and “Great-Russian” colonial project. Through their resistance, the Ukrainian people succeeded in containing the invasion, but Putin’s war means a prolonged war, bringing death, the destruction of towns and infrastructures, the displacement of populations, ecocide and crimes of all kinds by the invading army.

3. The Israeli state has transformed Gaza into a new and massive ghetto. Since 8 October 2023, using the attacks by Hamas as a pretext, the Israeli state has been raining down fire on the Gaza Strip while totally cutting off the Palestinians living there from outside resources, and increasing violence in the West Bank as well. Israeli colonialism, today led by Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing coalition, has reached a new qualitative stage in its project aimed at annihilating and expelling the Palestinian people from their territory. This project is at the heart of Israeli colonialism, it is a project of extreme violence that is actively supported by the governments of the United States and the European Union.

4. The new assault by the Israeli state on the Palestinian people has called forth protest in large parts of the world.  Western powers and large parts of mainstream media call the new Israeli assault a “war against terrorism” and a response to the attack by Hamas and its allies on 7 October. During this attack, which broke through the physical wall of colonial repression and surprised the army of occupation, Hamas also committed unacceptable murders of civilians. We resolutely reject such crimes as acts that are contrary to our emancipatory project. But unlike those who use “double standards”, we, like the Israeli left, can see how such violence comes from a context of extreme oppression.

5. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli occupation of Palestine are different in many respects, but in both cases the Fourth International is guided by the principle of support for the right to self-determination of peoples. We reject any form of campism that favours one imperialist power over another or that would reduce revolutionary politics to geopolitical calculations. Instead, we base ourselves on solidarity with the peoples and their struggles, even if today the people are led by bourgeois and/or reactionary forces. The ruling classes refuse to recognize the right of peoples to self-determination and attempt to repress any resistance. But this repression is facing determined resistance. We support the struggle of the Ukrainian people and that of the Russian and Belarusian opposition to defeat Putin’s criminal regime and obtain the withdrawal of Russian troops as the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace. Equally, we support the resistance of the Palestinian people and recognize that only the end of Israeli colonialism can bring an end to the violence.

6. Situations of war are developing in different parts of the world where oppressive powers deny the rights of peoples and national minorities. For example, the recent military offensive by the Azerbaijani regime resulted in the expulsion of more than 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. This offensive was carried out in collaboration with Erdogan’s Turkish regime, which continues to wage a war of its own against the Kurds in Turkey and Syria while constantly muzzling any progressive opposition in Turkey. Elsewhere, Kashmir continues to be the victim of colonial oppression by India and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia has waged an atrocious war in Yemen over the last few years, with the support of Western arms, French arms in particular.

7. In cynical fashion, the regimes of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and others pretend to be friends of the Palestinian people. They attempt to instrumentalize the global sympathy for the Palestinian cause to legitimize their own repressive regimes while refusing to give real meaningful support to the self-determination of the Palestinian people. Equally hypocritical are the Western governments that mouth noble rhetoric about democracy and self-determination in regard to Ukraine but simultaneously persist in their cooperation with and support for Israeli colonialism, ignoring all its violations of international law. Meanwhile, the Chinese government claims leadership over “the global south” while supporting oppressive regimes such as the murderous dictatorship in Myanmar.

8. US imperialism, still the leading imperialism in the world, has seized on the Russian war against Ukraine as an opportunity to strengthen itself. Part of this is its attempt instrumentalize Ukraine in its inter-imperialist rivalry with Russia. NATO has used the opportunity to enlarge itself and NATO member-states are using the Russian invasion as a pretext for massive increases of their military budgets. We demand the immediate dissolution of NATO and CSTO. Such military blocs of imperialist states are the enemies of social and national emancipation.

9. The French state has waged its own so-called  “war against terrorism” in the African Sahel, a war which has not solved any problems. This French war has provoked an anti-imperialist response among the peoples of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, a response which has been used by military adventurers to seize power through coups d’état that offer no prospect of a progressive alternative. In Sudan, the military putschists are waging a war against their own peoples who are challenging their power.

10. This world of militarism and wars, of the use of weapons banned by international conventions, of the denial of fundamental rights, particularly those of women, and massacres of civilians; this world of refugees pushed around the global and dominant classes refusing to tackle the climate crisis, this world seems to be losing all sense. Sadly, this is not new: previous decades have seen wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Syria and elsewhere. But the situation seems even more difficult today: a catastrophic logic of a “clash of civilizations” is being implemented by both so-called “Western” governments as well as those of Putin and Xi Jiping. This logic provides a stepping stone for the racist and sexist far-right, which is on the rise everywhere. At a time when the climate emergency has us by the throat, precious resources are squandered in wars of aggression and occupation.

11. And yet we are witnessing a massive worldwide aspiration for dignity and the defence of basic rights, for democratic, social and environmental justice, and for protecting the environment. People’s movements against imperialist and colonial domination, feminist movements, movements for LGBTIQ and minority rights, environmental movements, movements for social rights. In the face of current wars, we urgently need to take the offensive again through mass movements. Peace can only be just and lasting if it puts an end to oppression, occupation and militarism. This means rejecting any logic of sharing zones of influence between military blocs, neither NATO nor CSTO! Peace can only be just and lasting if it is anti-imperialist; if it is democratic, respects the rights of all and allocates the means necessary for ecological solutions. What is urgently needed is the mobilization of all energies, intelligence and means on a global scale. We need an ecosocialist transition to satisfy the fundamental needs of people everywhere!

12. In the face of the barbarity of war, we need to mobilize in concrete solidarity from below, with peoples fighting for their rights, in complete independence from governments, global or regional powers and reactionary political forces. We insist on the universality of principles such as the right of self-determination and the right to resist, whether in Ukraine, in Palestine or elsewhere. We support resistance against oligarchs and capitalists wherever they operate and have no illusions in reactionary and right-wing leaderships. We support the fight against the ultra-liberal agenda of the Zelensky government, and against its alignment with US imperialism. We condemn the reactionary world-view of Hamas and reject its criminal tactics. We do not forget how the repression of progressive forces favoured religious fundamentalist forces such as Hamas.

13. Today we must do everything we can to mobilize a massive worldwide movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, together with their allies in Israel. The Palestinian people are isolated and occupied. They stand alone, with almost no material support from outside. This makes our solidarity all the more necessary. We must prevent the expulsion of people, the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state and a second “Nakba”, we demand an immediate end to the bombing and blockade in Gaza, a ceasefire, and humanitarian aid. We demand the release of prisoners on all sides. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian civil society and support its call to strengthen the Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.

14. Our goal is a political solution that puts an end to colonization and guarantees the right of return of those expelled and equal rights of people of all origins on the land. Mobilizations in solidarity with Palestine are facing major obstacles such as rhetoric aimed at isolating the mobilizations and the forces building them, and in other countries the physical repression of demonstrations and other expressions of solidarity. Despite such repression, the Palestine solidarity movement continues and, by overcoming such obstacles, the movements also fight for democracy in their own countries.

15. We know that Hamas or other religious fundamentalist forces will not be allies in the search for a progressive Palestinian solution. The idea that the Palestinian people can achieve their national emancipation through a military defeat of the Israeli state, a state with overwhelming military superiority, is an illusion. In a Middle Eastern context of a mosaic of peoples and minorities, peace is possible only through the democratic emancipation of all.

The solution to the current worldwide crises can only come through mass international mobilization of the working people against imperialist occupation, for the right of peoples to self-determination, against the restriction of democratic freedoms, and for concrete solidarity, including humanitarian solidarity.

It is the role of the organizations of the workers’ movement and and popular movements to mobilize a broad section of the working class and the oppressed to contribute to these internationalist mobilizations, build concrete links with organizations of the oppressed and change the global balance of power.

End the Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people, ceasefire now!

Russian troops out of Ukraine!

Dissolve NATO and CSTO!

Against all forms of imperialism, international solidarity!

 

Originally published at https://fourth.international/en/510/asia/548

Photo:  Demonstration in Liège (Belgium). © Fourth International



Report from the Fourth International’s Revolutionary Youth Camp

This summer the Fourth International held its annual Revolutionary Youth Camp in France.  As part of the Fourth International, ecosocialist.scot participates in building this camp but also welcomes other individuals and comrades from fellow revolutionary organisations.  This year we invited RS21 – Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century – in Scotland to participate and were delighted they were able to send a representative.  Below is their report from the RS21 website.

This summer, younger comrades met to foster international solidarity across the socialist movement. Becky Brown reports. 

This year the 4th International youth camp was held in Vieure, central France, from 23-29 July. 200 youth from across Europe came together to better understand how their own political landscapes are situated within the context of globalised capitalism and, likewise, in the context of international solidarity. The camp itself was self-organised around an understanding of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, feminist and LGBTI+ liberatory values, and everyone participated in the maintenance of the camp by sharing security, bar, cleaning, translation and ‘awareness’ team (for dealing with conflicts and concerns) shifts, allowing us to have a taste actually living-out our values and ideas.

The first FI youth camp was held in 1984, making this the 38th camp (accounting for a two-year gap over Covid). It holds the idea that young people should be given the space to test and develop their ideas together, emphasising that youth education in politics should not be based on receiving lectures by old men. Likewise, it doesn’t expect all groups and individuals participating in the camp to hold the exact same politics – it sees a commitment to international solidarity, non-Stalinism and non-reformism as sufficient common ground to build for healthy discussions. I found this to work well, as strategic discussions tended to focus on actual struggles rather than party building or petitioning our respective liberal/conservative states, allowing us to share ideas on how to build on-the-ground momentum and actively engage in solidarity work. Likewise, I found it helpful to hear from experiences of different groups across the camp, some of whom were from small organisations with no party affiliations and others were youth wings of far left political parties or far left party blocks.

Participants were primarily from France, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal and Scotland, as well as some comrades from South American countries who were able to provide key perspectives and experiences from beyond Europe. International solidarity was not simply a form of tokenistic rhetoric. This was nicely exemplified by the organisation of the camp itself, where participation fees were scaled according to the buying power of each country. Want to buy some beer? Then you’ll have to go to the bank to exchange your euros for ‘tou-cramer’ (burn everything!) with a similarly scaled exchange rate.

Programme

The programme was centred on a different theme per day, these themes having been elected on by a meeting of delegates in Amsterdam during Easter. This is nicely indicative of the way in which the camp is developed mainly by the participants themselves, both before and during the camp, in a way that consciously aims for openness and internal democracy. These themes were selected as key sites of struggle in the present moment, as we face up to a system of ecocidal global capitalism that has led rise to the most recent onslaught of floods, fires, droughts across the world as well as spiralling cost-of-living crises. Likewise, the present growth of reactionary policies and movements has emphasised how questions of anti-racism, feminism and LGBTI+ liberation must also be placed centrally in the revolutionary movements, in acknowledgment of the central role they play in capitalism’s reproduction and social-reproduction.

Each day began with a session known as an ‘educational’, delivering an in-depth analysis of how each of these themes – eco-socialism, anti-racism, feminism, LGBTI+ liberation, social movements, and party and strategy – is situated within the contemporary landscape. The educationals showed how the Marxist method of analysis could be applied to each topic, foregrounding the question of how ruling classes materially benefit from perpetuating a system that is racist, ecocidal, etc. The camp participants ranged from the ages of 15 to 30 and therefore they encompassed a wide range of experiences and prior exposure to this method of analysis. Considering this, it was useful to keep returning to this material analysis, ensuring that all camp participants were developing their critiques on the shared understanding that, for example, racism is not simply a moral position but that it serves as a useful tool for the benefit of capitalist ruling classes. LGBTI+ oppression was therefore analysed through the framework of the hetero-patriarchal family, using social reproduction theory. It was shown how LGBTI+ identities pose a challenge to the way capitalism has organised the labour force in the public and private spheres, exemplifying how matters of our supposed ‘private life’ and of identities are not divisible from the economic system we live under.

The camp recognised that people have had different experiences regarding how capitalism has intersected with their identities. A key part of the camp organisation was to privilege several ‘closed’ spaces, whereby people who had experiences of (1) being racialised, (2) being LGBTI+, (3) womanhood (from a trans-inclusive perspective) and (4) being transgender, were timetabled discussion periods in spaces reserved only for those who identified as belonging to that group. This gave them the opportunity to focus on strategic questions, for example how to organise as racialised minorities in our organisations, or organising the fightback against transphobia, ensuring that liberatory struggles could be developed and spearheaded by those who are most affected.  The educational on anti-racism emphasised that the FI camps had had women’s and LGBTI+ closed spaces since the 1980s and 90s, and this had not extended this to a racialised peoples until 2017. The camp acknowledged that it had not always recognised the significance of race in revolutionary struggle, and the delegations have never been a good representation of the racial diversity of the countries they supposedly represent.

Unfortunately there was no session timetabled for feedbacking any key ideas developed in the closed spaces, so I do not know what strategic insights came about within most of the closed spaces. In the women’s space, however, participants were keen to hear about the histories of sexual violence within the SWP. Links were drawn to other far-left organisations who have also faced the same problems, and questions emerged surrounding the accountability of organisational structures that have consolidated unhealthy and patriarchal power systems within themselves despite having well-formed critiques when looking outwards.

The themes of accountability and internal democracy emerged in a variety of discussions over the week, somewhat in continuation of these questions surrounding the internal organisation of left groups and the concurrent intersection with identity-based oppression. It seemed that the youth wings of political groups/parties were keen to foreground accountability procedures as a way of fighting against oppressive systems that have marred their groups in the past. It was recognised as worthy of serious consideration and as necessary of consideration as external struggles, something that is not traditionally foregrounded in left wing strategic discussions. The importance of this is painfully clear though from experiences that each delegation brought to the camp. For example, the Swiss party Solidarité recently experienced an elected cohort of older men who broke away and stole significant finances from the Solidarité, following disputes about their refusal to maintain accountable to the party.

Workshops

Another key part of the camp programme were daily workshops and inter-delegation meetings. Workshops were led by youth participants from each delegation, who would introduce a prominent issue from their national context (strikes, social movements, policy changes etc) and then open this up to the rest of the group for discussion and comparison with correlate issues from their own contexts. Topics included fights against Airbnb; union struggles; resisting Denmark’s deeply racist ‘ghetto-isation’ laws; Frontex and fortress Europe; undocumented migrants and refugee struggles; LGBTI+ struggle; French resistance against pension reform; Switzerland’s compulsory conscription, amongst many others. There were also practical workshops on how to build a tripod, feminist self-defence and building defensive frontlines against security services.

The Scottish delegation led the workshop on the transphobic movement in Britain. Other delegations reported back how useful they had found this workshop, as Britain’s transphobic reactionary movements are further along than the many transphobic movements elsewhere, meaning that key strategic lessons could be developed out of hearing about our experience.

Members of the French delegation delivered a workshop on Soulevement de la Terre and the fight against mega-basins. It gave an overview of why the mega-basins were selected as a target, given that they appear to be less harmful than major fossil fuel infrastructure that is typically targeted by climate groups across Europe. It progressed onto discussing the movement’s strategies and the subsequent police repression. It was clear that mega-basins are both ecologically damaging and part of an extractivist agribusiness economy, making them deeply unpopular with the 95% of local farmers who are outside of the agribusiness economy. This shared opposition allowed a strong alliance to form between the local farmers union and the climate movement, building a resistance movement that numbered 30,000 people. It led to conversations about how these lessons of mobilisation could be applied to our own climate movements and fed into a conversation about the fight in Denmark against the building of a new island near Copenhagen, an unjustifiable vanity project that is going to have major impacts on flooding in the future and yet has no public opposition to currently tap into.

Swiss delegates led a workshop questioning the significance of political parties in developing a revolutionary horizon. The workshop was attended by people from a broad range of views and organisational experiences, from those acting in autonomous groups to members of revolutionary parties sitting within parliamentary left-wing blocks. The participants were keen to discuss the value of parliamentary politics within a bourgeois state, debating if the state’s formal power can be vied for or if it inevitably leads to the co-optation of far-left politics once the parties have been absorbed into the political system. This theme re-emerges over and over again – both in and out the camp-  and was reiterated by the splits recently experienced by several of the parties/organisations present at the camp.

Interdelegation meetings

Interdelegation meetings were an opportunity to meet with another national grouping to learn more about their context, and to draw comparisons or points of disagreement. Other delegations were keen to hear about the current state of the Scottish Independence movement, as well as about the UK climate movement, the parliamentary left and an assessment of the strength of a far-right movement. The rise of the far-right was a theme that emerged across many inter-delegation meetings, giving a visceral impression of the growing threat they are currently posing across Europe.

I came away with a greater sense of how comparable many of the struggles are and it felt good to be faced with the reminder of how our respective states are acting on similar interests in the protection of capital – meaning that providing space for discussions like these can be invaluable for comparing our experiences of fighting back and sharing strategies. In practice, the workshops actually provided a better platform for comparing tactics, as in the workshops the conversations remained focused on a single struggle and therefore allowed more time for them to be fully explored. The inter-delegation meetings were only an hour long, meaning that they were typically more of a Q&A session where individuals from each delegation would ask about areas they were interested in. Few of us knew much about the political landscape of the other countries, so the inter-delegation meetings were a good opportunity to ask someone with similar politics for their perspective on their country’s political situation and the role/strength of organised struggles. It felt important to learn these things, but meant that the inter-delegation meetings’ supposed aim was not necessarily achieved – maybe if the camp was two weeks long rather than one!

Conclusions

In all, the camp was an impressive experience where many ideas were shared, critiqued and developed. Moreover, it was a valuable space where we had the opportunity to live beside one another, sharing our experiences of struggle, resistances, strategies, and to socialise and build friendships across borders. It gave us a taste of what it is like to live with a sense of consciousness – both political and interpersonal consciousness – as we participated in, maintained and led the camp’s programme and logistics, and worked within the camp’s internal democracy to make continuous improvements. The result was festive and liberating which stands in stark contrast to the way neoliberalism infects our normal environments. It really did allow us to live out a form of ‘revolutionary tenderness’, in the words of a previous attendee.

25 August 2023

Republished from:  https://www.rs21.org.uk/2023/08/25/report-from-the-fourth-internationals-revolutionary-youth-camp/

Photo: The Scotland delegation of the Fourth International Youth Camp 2023 (RS21)



Solidarity with the Peruvian people

A statement by the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International

Against the murderous government of Dina Boluarte!

New immediate elections and National Constituent Assembly!

In mid-December, large and combative mobilizations took to the streets and squares of the main cities of Peru, in an uprising motivated by the coup perpetrated on 7 December by the right-wing majority Congress, which first dismissed and then had the elected President Pedro Castillo arrested – through the mechanism of the “decree of vacancy”, a sort of impeachment. The Congress replaced Castillo with his vice-president, Dina Boluarte. Popular mobilizations raised the slogans of new general elections, Constituent Assembly and Castillo’s release. Since then, the coup government of Boluarte, supported by all the bourgeois and reactionary sectors of the country, has strongly repressed those who oppose the institutional coup, with a bloody result blood of 30 dead and 700 wounded, including 300 police. [The numbers are from the Peruvian Ombudsman’s Office].

The Boluarte government, puppet of the ilegitimate Congress, has played to stabilize itself by combining harsh repression with a strong media campaign of “pacification” of the country, through which it is criminalizing opponents, justifying arrests and confrontations. Thus, it has reinforced state repression: it has declared a state of emergency at national level since 15 December, resorting to the Armed Forces to contain the demonstrations. On that date, a military massacre took place in Ayacucho, with the use of bullet projectiles, and eight demonstrators were killed. Boluarte is resorting to the political police (Dircote) and the mass media to stigmatize and criminalize the popular fighters and organizes mobilizations for “peace” in some regions, with the social bases of the ultra-right in his crude objective of legitimizing the repressive forces. Thus, in these days, in order to confront a day of struggles and strikes called by the opposition for Wednesday, 4 January 4, the governmen called for a “demonstration for peace” in Lima.

The crisis of the Fujimori political system

The coup and the popular reaction against Congress and the new president are the violent culmination of the political-institutional crisis deepened five years ago, a period during which four former presidents were convicted of corruption (one of whom went into exile, another committed suicide in house arrest) and three, elected by Congress, resigned between 2020 and 2021. The Peruvian tragedy has much of its origin in the current Constitution, promulgated by dictator Alberto Fujimori in 1993, which instituted corporate financing of parties and candidates – which guarantees an almost perpetual majority to the most conservative and pro-business forces – in addition to allowing the Executive to be constantly under the threat of impeachment by Congress.

Elected in an extremely polarized process and with ultra-fragmented political options (31 candidacies in the first round), the rural teacher and union leader Pedro Castillo – candidate of Peru Libre – came to power in June 2021. He governed harassed by a racist Lima elite, the populist ultra-right of Keiko Fujimori (the daughter of the dictator, who confronted him in the second round), a parliament and a coupist press, which have never digested having a trade unionist of peasant origin and from the interior as president. The mass media, the parliamentary ultra-right and the Attorney General’s Office have permanently besieged him, with a systematic blocking of the Executive’s bills, the opening of six fiscal trials in record time against the president and successive motions of vacancies and interpellations. At the same time, the right-wing and ultra-right-wing parliamentary groups prevented a possible Constitutional Referendum and altered the balance of power with constitutional reforms that limited the mechanisms that would allow closing the Congress so hated by the popular majorities. It was absolutely clear that the reactionary majority in Congress sought to overthrow Castillo and regain total control of the Executive.

But, instead of relying on the popular organizations to fulfill the promises of change for which the people voted, Castillo was giving in to the ruling classes, removing progressive or leftist ministers, and incorporating neo-liberal technocrats in his cabinet. In less than a year and a half, he lost the political initiative and tried to decree a frustrated “state of exception”, without any basis or the balance of forces for that. The response to this manoeuvre was the coup of the Congress, which was approved in nine minutes, without the right to defence and ignoring the procedures established in the same regulation of the parliamentary institution. In this way, Peru joins Honduras (2009), Paraguay and Brazil in a history of institutional coups (parliamentary, judicial and media) through which important fractions of the Latin American neoliberal bourgeoisies manage to get rid of governments that bother them or no longer serve them.

Illegitimate government and Congress

Agent of the coup, the current Peruvian Congress has proven that it does not have the democratic legitimacy to continue its administration, besides never having had constituent power. After the vacancy irregularly approved against Castillo on 7 December and the brutal repression of popular demonstrations by the illegitimate government, the removal of Boluarte from office, with a call for new elections for president and a new Congress, is urgently needed.

The profound popular erosion of the Peruvian political system born of Fujimorism requires – as wisely and courageously demanded by those who are rising up against the Congress and the coup President – a new democratic and sovereign constituent process, which will rewrite the rules of the game in favor of the majorities.

The Fourth International expresses its solidarity with the popular mobilizations in Peru and our active support for their demands, beginning with an immediate end to the repression of the protests, the release of all prisoners and a thorough investigation, with international observers, into the deaths, injuries and imprisonment perpetrated by the Armed Forces and police. We call on all revolutionary and progressive organizations of the world to denounce the coup that has overthrown Castillo, the authoritarian government of Dina Boluarte and the Congress coup, in view of the brutal repression they are deploying in the Andean country.

AGAINST THE PARLIAMENTARY COUP: OUT WITH DINA BOLUARTE!

END THE STATE OF EMERGENCY NOW!

RELEASE OF ALL PRISONERS! INVESTIGATION OF THE DEATHS AND PUNISHMENT OF THE ASSASSINS!

FOR A CONSTITUENT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY!

Executive Bureau of the Fourth International

4 January 2023

Originally published on the Fourth International website: https://fourth.international/en/566/latin-america/494



Statement: The rich make us pay for their profits! Let’s mobilize against the rise in the cost of living

The following statement on the cost-of-living crisis across Europe has been prepared by sections of the Fourth International and is signed by ecosocialist.scot.

The rich make us pay for their profits! Let’s mobilize against the rise in the cost of living

For several months now, strike movements and popular mobilizations have been developing in Europe – both inside and outside the European Union – to resist the explosion in the cost of living.

The price of energy, food, rents, transport has increased over the past two years in all countries, aggravating the living conditions of the working classes already under heavy attack in recent years by precariousness, job cuts with Covid and a fall in real wages and benefits.

After inflation in the EU-27 and the UK of respectively 2.6% and 2.5% in 2021, in August 2022, the CPI year-on-year inflation rates reached at 10.5% and 9.9%, with 12.0% and 13.1% for food, 37.5% and 32.0% for fuels (44.6% and 48.8% in 15 months), (sources STATISTA and ONS).  Electricity prices began to rise last autumn across Europe, with gas prices exploding during the same period (well before the Russian military invaded Ukraine), tripling over a year in Germany and the Netherlands, while energy prices doubled for households in Britain.  In the all-Ireland energy market, prices have risen across the board, north and south, including in the important cost of heating oil, with government interventions stalled in the north by the collapse of political institutions and the ongoing impact of Brexit.

The driving force of this inflation is found in the stock market speculation on raw materials since the recovery in demand since the height of the Covid pandemic, in the context of an oligopolistic market. The catastrophic climate situation in recent months, drought and heat, explicit consequences of climate change, have worsened this situation, as of course the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s army. Global oil supply is set to tighten, intensifying concerns over soaring inflation after the OPEC+ group of nations (including Russia), faced with falling prices, announced at the beginning of September its largest supply cut since 2020. The move comes ahead of European Union embargoes on Russian energy over the Ukraine war. Speculation on energy prices and an explosion of profits distributed to the shareholders of large companies have resulted. Underlying all this, there is an epochal reduction in the availability of fossil fuels.

Marginal rates of profit have risen, not only in large transport, energy and pharmaceutical companies.  Profits in 2021 have been historic. In an unprecedented move, the five largest French banks generated more than €31 billion in profits in 2021. Spain’s Santander recorded €8.1 billion in net income, Italy’s Intesa San Paolo €4.2 billion and Germany’s Deutsche Bank €3.4 billion.  Volkswagen’s operating margin almost doubled to €20 billion. In the first half of 2022, Shell (Netherlands) leads the way with profits of $20.6 billion, followed by BP (UK) with $21.5 billion and TotalEnergies (France) with $14.7 billion.

These few examples of dazzling enrichment, which is also accompanied by the personal enrichment of the propertied class, especially by distribution of dividends and increase of shares value, contrast with the low wage and benefit rises, the drastic loss of purchase power and labour rights, which have increased the impoverishment of the popular classes. The unequal distribution of wealth worsened during the beginning of the Covid years. This inequality has sharpened even more, particularly for women, young people, the racialized working classes, disabled people, and those populations living in the most deprived areas. A study predicts that by the end of the year 80% of households in the UK will be in energy poverty and a further explosion of energy prices is anticipated in 2023.

In this period, neoliberal governments have stepped up tax measures in favour of corporations, cut social spending and significantly increased military budgets – with the concomitant impact on inflation – further worsening the living conditions of the most precarious. The Ukraine war is instrumentalized by reactionary forces, multinational firms and imperialist powers to push their own agenda, arguing that all military budgets are aimed at helping Ukrainian resistance, which is obviously false. Solidarity against the Putin invasion does not prevent fighting against neoliberal and imperialist agendas and austerity policies directed against the working classes.

Governments at different levels (national, regional, local) have introduced support aid systems, energy price ceilings or transport packages, so the weight of inflation on popular classes is uneven depending on the state, but these systems are temporary and do not make up for the increase in the cost of living. 

Material conditions, including the interminable wait for the next pay or benefit cheque, have become the essential concern for the vast majority of the working class. Energy, food, housing costs are essential for everyone and these costs are all increasing to unbearable levels

Such a situation is intolerable.

Many struggles have taken place in recent months:

Across the UK state there has been a significant increase in national strikes since the spring despite the most repressive anti-strike laws in Europe – particularly in transport, on the post, in telecoms and in several major ports. A significant vote has just been won for strikes by university lecturers, while schoolteachers and health workers are also balloting. On the other hand, there have been signs of fragmentation of action on the rail and mail by the leaderships of those unions. There is a significant level of public support for the strikes that are taking place. This is combined with political action especially around the right to food and the right to housing. A six months’ rent freeze has been imposed across Scotland by the devolved government there.

At the same time, we have seen the development of a movement to boycott the payment of energy bills with “Don’t Pay UK” across Britain and in Italy, especially in Naples. In Germany, the demonstrations on the left have so far been limited to the oppositional left and some trade unions. This weakness is due mostly to the fact that the leadership of the big industrial unions, the chemical workers union and the metal workers union, are embedded in a tripartite structure which is proposing relief measures for the population. The far right tries to profit from the huge price increases with demonstrations that outnumber those of the left. Huge demonstration occurred in the Czech Republic on 3 October. Several days of strikes called by the trade unions, demonstrations against the high cost of living have taken place or are scheduled (in France 29 Sept, 16 and 18 October, 21 September and 9 November in Belgium). In France, strikes developed around the oil refineries, with workers on strike for four weeks.

Attacks on living conditions will worsen further in the coming months, particularly with the planned increase in contracts and energy prices, and the end of measures which partially cushioned their impact.

In Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, we see different political currents with different motivations attempting to divert popular classes’ anger away from the capitalists responsible for this crisis and moreover refusing concrete measures to be taken immediately to protect and improve the level and conditions of life for the poorest and most precarious part of the population. At the time when the far right is seeking to exploit this situation, it is our responsibility to seek to organize the broadest class, social and political fronts to impose social demands, the requisition of the wealth produced and the organization of public services for the benefit of the popular classes by aiming at capitalist profits.  We particularly want to see the whole movement devoting resources to organizing and supporting the most precarious.

In these mobilizations, we stand for:

• Increase in wages and benefits at least in line with inflation, with particular protection for those on low incomes, and “uberized workers”, who are de facto employees of capitalist groups

• For automatic increases to keep pace with inflation – a sliding scale of wages and benefits with real measures of inflation determined by organized workers and benefit recipients themselves.

• Abolition of gender inequality at work; give effect to the principle of equal pay for men and women for work of equal value

• Access to free childcare for any child that needs it

• Abolition of VAT on food and energy and reduction and freeze of rents and prices of basic necessities

• Increase of effective tax rate on wealth and profit

• Free local and regional transport, growth of public transport systems

• Free power and heating corresponding to people’s basic needs

• Energy, banking and transport companies, to be socialized under democratic control by workers and users

• Audit of the public debt with citizen participation leading to the cancellation of the illegitimate debt as a way of finding more room for an increase in social spending and in the struggle against the ecological crisis.

• Massive investment into renewable energy, no new fossil fuels – for the decommissioning of nuclear.

At a time when ultraliberal governments are developing, attacking democratic rights, including in alliance with neo-fascist forces as in Sweden or Italy, it is vital that the anti-capitalist forces, the workers’ movement as a whole, develop an emergency plan against the high cost of living and inflation to support all the already existing popular mobilizations and develop them while fighting attempts by the far right to exploit popular anger.

16 November 2022

Signatures

Belgium:           -SAP-Antikapitalisten / Gauche anticapitaliste

England and Wales:     – Anticapitalist  Resistance

France:            – Ensemble ! (Mouvement pour une Alternative de Gauche et Ecologiste)

– NPA (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste)

Germany:         – ISO (Internationale Sozialistische Organisation)

Greece:            – TPT (Fourth International Programmatic Tendency) & Magazine “4” – Greek section of FI

Italy :                – Sinistra Anticpapialista

Norway:  – FIN (Fourth International in Norway, Forbundet Internasjonalen)

Portugal :         – SPQI : collective of FI activists

                         -Toupeira Vermelha: collective of FI activists

Scotland:  – ecosocialist.scot

Spanish State:  – Anticapitalistas

Sweden :          – Socialistik Politik

Switzerland :    – BFS/MPS (Bewegung für den Sozialismus/mouvement pour le socialisme/movimento per il socialismo)

– solidaritéS

Originally published on the Fourth International website: https://fourth.international/en/485



Solidarity with the protest movement in Iran!

Statement of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International

Since 16 September Iran has been thrown into turmoil by widespread protests against the policies of the ruling clique. They were triggered by the brutal murder of the young woman Jîna (Mahsa) Amini, who was beaten to death by the “morality police”. The duration and the expansion of the demonstrations to all parts of the country and almost all strata of the population testify to a deep-seated discontent and anger that goes beyond rejection of the regime’s deeply restrictive dress code for women. The causes also lie in a social plight that has been worsening for years for large sections of the population and in massive repression.

Unlike previous unrest, such as the rebellion against electoral fraud (2009) or protests against rising fuel prices (2019), the rallying cry in the forefront is “Down with the Islamic Republic!” After a month of protests the movement is still going strong and spreading.

Compared to past decades, the social hardship among the population is even greater today. More than half of the population lives below the subsistence level and can only survive with a lot of difficulties. Health care has become even more inadequate than it already was. The ecological damage is enormous, with severe water shortages, desertification and deforestation affecting the rural population particularly, and high levels of air and water pollution in the cities.

What is striking and enthusing is that the movement is led by young women, including school students. This is fed by the history of women’s struggles and movements in Iran since before the days of the 1979 revolution. Popular support is based on a now widely shared hatred of the regime and of the corrupt theocratic clique that dominates and exploits the country, enriching itself to the point of becoming dollar billionaires.

The fact that the movement has lasted for so long and on such a broad scale, despite the harsh repression, can only be explained by the anger felt above all by the younger generations. Broad sections of the students and pupils who are resisting their confinement and taking to the streets for a different life.

The second specificity of today’s wave of protest is that it has spread from Jîna (Mahsa) Amini’s home city in Kurdistan throughout the country. This is why the Kurdish chant “Jin Jiyan Azadi” translated to Persian as “Zan Zendegi Azadi” has become the main slogan of the movement today. In Kurdistan, the rejection of the theocratic regime and the struggle for self-determination have a long tradition and are being expressed with force. What is new is the scale of the protests in Baluchistan, where social oppression and massive poverty are the worst in the country. The repression there manifested itself, for example, on 7 October when more than 100 people were shot dead during a demonstration in the provincial capital Zahedan.

And a third prominent feature should not be overlooked: For a week now, calls for a political strike have been increasing, something that has not happened for more than 35 years, since the crushing of workers’ councils and left organisations. A first section of the oil industry in the southern Khuzistan province has been on strike for a week, evoking memories of 1979, when the oil workers’ strike was the prelude to a nationwide general strike. However, the leaderships of the main independent unions are almost without exception in prison.

It is solely up to the people of Iran to determine their own destiny, with full democratic rights and gender equality, with religious freedom and secularism, defending the rights of all minorities and working for social and economic justice.

We therefore call for:

– Broadening the international support of all progressive and left-wing forces for the protest and revolt movement in Iran against the religious dictatorship, for the defence of democratic freedoms, and for the dismantling of the police and militias that repress the individual freedoms notably of women.

– Expressions of internationalist solidarity such as messages from women’s movements, trade unions, student associations and so on to give political and moral support to the movement. We encourage trade unions to discuss with their counterparts practical forms of solidarity; universities to call on their counterparts to protect the lives and freedom of their students; women’s and student movements to make links with movements in Iran.

– Support for public demonstrations of solidarity with the movement on the call of the progressive forces in the Iranian communities in exile, this is crucial.

– An end to all repression in Iran and for human rights organisation to monitor the crimes committed by the state in their repression of the population.

– For the right to humanitarian visas primarily for persecuted women and girls and LGBTIQ people, fleeing the repression in Iran.
Woman, life, freedom!

Zan, Zendegi, Azadi

Jin, Jiyan, Azadi

18 October 2022

Executive Bureau

Reprinted from https://fourth.international/en/566/middle-east/475

Photo: Uprising in Tehran Sept 2022  Copyright  Darafsh / Wikimedia commons



The experience of the International Youth camp, an essential political moment!

The International Youth camp took place from 23 to 29 July 2022 in Vieure, France. After two years of suspension due to Covid-19, the gathering is a week of self-managed camp that this year brought together more than 200 young revolutionaries from different parts of Europe, but also from Ukraine, Russia, Brazil and Mexico to celebrate the 37th edition of the youth camps of the Fourth International.

This annual camp is dedicated to indepth discussion of different themes, to the sharing of our local and international struggles and to the developing of common strategies and actions. Each day is divided into several parts. The mornings are reserved for plenary educationals on themes such as ecosocialism, feminist and LGBTQIA+ struggles, imperialism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, class struggle as youth and strategic approaches. This year we had guests such as Andreas Malm (Socialistika Partiet, Sweden), Olivia Borchmann (SUF, Denmark), Julien Salingue (NPA, France), Laurent Sorel, (Gauche Éco-Socialiste, ex Ensemble Insoumis, France), Marta Autore (Comunia, Italy) and Jonathan Simmel (SUF, Denmark)

The afternoons are mainly aimed at highlighting specific concepts or situations arising from the theme of the plenary. They consist of concrete workshops on different struggles, inter-delegation meetings to deepen our international knowledge and share strategies of struggle, but also non-mixed spaces for self-organisation of feminist, LGBTQIA+ and anti-racist struggles. In order to build and elaborate a real internationalist struggle, standing commissions on the Russian imperialist war in Ukraine and ecosocialism today were also on the agenda. A declaration in solidarity with the resistance of the Ukrainian people was also adopted.

Throughout the busy stay, the camp also remains a place for practising self-management where young activists manage the different daily tasks from cleaning to multilingual interpretation. There are also voluntary tasks such as the awareness team (to deal with conflicts or personal concerns) or the care team (which acts as a preventative measure and ensures the well-being of everyone) that allow us to make the space as safe as possible and to carry out certain tasks around care.

This kind of political practice is even more indispensable in a materialist perspective. The neoliberal capitalist system in which we live shapes our thinking; in other words, our consciousness is constructed according to the world around us. Throughout the year we fight this system, even when the revolution seems far away, we know that the struggle is permanent and on all fronts. For many participants, far from being a utopian space outside the system, the camp, by its organization and structure, allows us to have a foretaste of a self-managed internationalist communist solidarity society requiring perpetual adjustments in order to ensure the proper functioning of community life. Indeed, during meetings between FI youth delegates in preparation for the camp, the camp is constantly redefined each year on the basis of previous criticisms. The camp is organized by the member organizations or those close to the Fourth International in Europe, and its construction is ongoing and international.

This political moment is an essential exercise that acts as a catalyst facilitating the sharing of experiences, a festive atmosphere and above all a true spirit of camaraderie. The experience of the youth camp is essential in the construction of tomorrow’s anti-capitalist, ecosocialist, feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-fascist and internationalist society.

Translated by International Viewpoint from Gauche Anticapitaliste  Originally published at: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7766



Solidarity with Ukrainian and Russian resistance to the war – Statement of 37th Fourth International youth camp

Having met this week with Ukrainian and Russian socialists committed to the defeat of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we, activists gathered at the 37th international revolutionary youth camp in solidarity with the Fourth international in Vieure (France) from the 23rd until the 29th of July 2022, declare our opposition to Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine.

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine since the 24th of February 2022 marks a clear escalation of the war which had been going on since 2014 in the country. It is aimed at satisfying Great Russian expansionism; it has resulted in numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity; tens of thousands of Ukrainians have already been killed, 15 million have been forced to flee their homes and many of them had to seek refuge abroad. The immediate withdrawal of Russian troops is necessary to stop the sufferings and ensure the democratic self-determination of the people in Ukraine.

We express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people who are the victims of this unjustified assault and support their resistance against the invading and occupying power. We also stand in solidarity with opposition to the war as expressed by Russian activists, many of them having had to flee abroad to escape the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime. We remind Europe that this regime is hailed by many far-right movements which have been on the rise throughout the continent.

We warn against any direct inter-imperialist war between NATO and Russia, all the while striving for the defeat of the Russian invasion. A nuclear conflict would be a disaster the world has only had horrifying glimpses of before.

We call for the cancellation of all Ukrainian foreign debt held by Western powers as well as international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. This debt has only helped develop a neoliberal regime of capitalist accumulation in Ukraine at the expense of the Ukrainian working class. Freeing these funds would help Ukraine resist the Russian assault and rebuild the country without the interference of Western neoliberal markets.

So far, the sanctions have targeted a limited number of members of the Russian ruling class; they clearly are ineffective in stopping the war.

Furthermore, Western companies continue to trade military components with Russia. We support the expropriation of Russian millionaires’ assets in foreign banks and their redistribution to rebuild Ukraine and support the victims of the war. This requires an international public register of wealth; such a register would also be a necessary first step to impose any meaningful tax on the capitalists of our own countries to make them pay for the economic and social crisis which the war in Ukraine has aggravated while allowing for even more delirious profits for capitalists such as in the spheres of energy and arms sales.

We thank our Ukrainian comrades from Sotsіalniy Rukh for dedicating time to come to this camp and share their experiences; we will stay in solidarity with them and with our Russian comrades to contribute to the defeat of the Russian invasion in any way we can and help rebuild an independent and democratic Ukraine. We hope our exchanges and discussions during and after this camp can help inspire a world free of military blocks and all neo-colonial relations.

29 July 2022



Building revolutionary tenderness: Chronicles of the 37th Revolutionary Youth Camp in France

Between July 23 and 29, around 200 young people gathered to celebrate the 37th edition of the Revolutionary Youth Camp organised by the Fourth International in Vieure (France). After almost three years since the last camp, the hope, motivation and emotion of returning to share self-managed spaces of camaraderie, support and mutual learning were enormous. And it certainly did not disappoint. 

One of the greatest difficulties we have when it comes to explaining and developing our political project for society is to bring our theoretical proposals to praxis with maximum consequences. They accuse us of being utopian or idealistic and perhaps we are, but we need oases in which to show how a fair, democratic, supportive, open and empathetic society where the division of tasks, interpersonal relationships and collective interests prevail over the principles of exclusion, competitiveness and individualism prevailing in capitalist societies.

That is what the revolutionary youth camps are about: of understanding the revolutionary organisation as part of a joint learning process of our own struggles, but also of sharing experiences of struggle and resistance with comrades from the global north and south who allow us to walk towards an ecosocialist, feminist, queer, anti-racist and anti-capitalist horizon.

Thus the program, which is usually divided into thematic days, tried to offer a broad look at the main issues that affect the crisis of neoliberal capitalism and that help us build poles of radicalisation in youth.  It placed special emphasis on the need to bet on ecosocialism as our lives depend on it; to stand firm in the anti-imperialist struggle and against the radicalisation of authoritarian neoliberalism; to vindicate the importance of LGBTQI+ struggles not only on a cultural level, but also in the materialist intersection of advancing  collective rights and freedoms; to delve into the advances that feminism has made and discuss how to go on the offensive against reactionary discourses.  Finally, the importance and necessity of having organic structures that allow us to organise rage internationally was also addressed, enabling us to weave common strategies against a system that devours, crushes and marginalises us.

All of this was developed through plenary activities that addressed how to be revolutionary in a world in flames, how feminist and LGBTQI+ struggles are a threat to capitalism, the characterisation of authoritarian neoliberalism and its attacks against international solidarity networks, how to decolonise society, the role of youth in the class struggle and the importance of organising ourselves to crush capitalism. On the other hand,  educational  activities also took the form of workshops in which participants elaborated specific problems or shared experiences of international struggle. Among them, we can highlight the need to bring to the debate aspects such as new forms of relationships and radical ways of loving, the importance of talking about capitalism and mental health, the new struggles in which youth play a central role, as is the case with housing and the fight against speculation or the Marxist theory of the state.

At the same time, spaces for women, LGBTQI+ and people of colour were created which, in addition to being safe places for those who are part of the group, also allowed us to go deeper into the discussions and horizons towards which feminist, queer and anti-racist struggles are directed.

In short, the camps are an opportunity for political training, but they are also the best option for weaving personal networks of friendship, sisterhood and camaraderie, which are essential to the societies we aspire to build. In other words, to harden ourselves without losing our tenderness, because tenderness is revolutionary and knows no borders.  Therefore, I would like to thank all the compañeras for making the camps a space that truly becomes a reference point when imagining alternative futures. In difficult times for social movements and the radical left, enjoying places where utopia becomes a reality is a pill that enables us to recharge our batteries, to focus on youth building along a new political path. Paraphrasing Durruti, “ruins don’t scare us because we carry a new world in our hearts. And that world is growing right now.” For this reason, understanding the revolutionary organisation as part of a joint learning process of our own struggles, and sharing experiences of struggle and resistance with comrades from the global North and South, is a ground-breaking and transformative exercise that inspires us to stand firm until victory. Long live the Revolutionary Youth Camps. Long live the Fourth International.

1 August 2022

Diego Fernández Gómez is a militant of Anticapitalistas in the Spanish state

Article published in Poder Popular. Translated by David Fagan for fourth.interrnational and published at: https://fourth.international/en/2022-france/456



International Youth Summer Camp, France, 23-29 July 2022 – support the Scotland delegation!

Are you one of the hundreds of thousands of activists who mobilised for COP 26 in Glasgow last year? Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement? Eager to defend migrant and refugee rights? Furious about the way workers and young people suffer the cost of living crisis while profits soar?

To fight to fix a world torn apart by war, greed and climate catastrophe, it’s essential to understand why these things happen, and how you can organise to change them. That’s what the Fourth International’s annual youth camp is all about.

During a week in the sun with hundreds of young students, workers, and campaigners from across Europe and beyond you’ll have the chance to:

  • join meetings, workshops and self-organised spaces to discuss ecosocialism, feminism, anti-racism, LGBTI struggles, internationalism and fighting austerity
  • meet leaders of campaigns that are on the cutting edge of radical youth activism
  • socialise, share experiences, debate ideas and plan joint actions

This is a unique opportunity for young activists from Britain to meet with other environmentalists, feminists and socialists.

The International Youth Summer Camp in July is hosted by comrades of the Fourth International in France.

23 JULY TO 29 JULY 2022,

La Bordé, 03430 Vieure, France (about 320 kms directly south of Paris.)

Socialist Resistance is the Fourth International organisation in Britain. SR will be working with comrades in ecosocialist.scot in Scotland and Anti*Capitalist Resistance in England and Wales to send a delegation to the camp.

If what we talk about here chimes at all with your politics you’ll love the camp.

Already in a different organisation? Ask it to contact us about sending people.

You will need your passport, and you’ll need to sort a tent and sleeping bag.

The camp costs roughly £130 for the week, including food – plus travel to France. We are trying to organize transport collectively from both Scotland and from London – and maybe other places if there is enough interest. And the sooner we book the cheaper – so get in touch now if you are interested and we will tell you more

We know that many people may need financial support towards the costs so we are working on raising money to help – that hasn’t been a barrier on previous occasions and we hope it won’t this time either.

Get ready to change the world and contact us by email:  SRYouthCamp2022@gmail.com or via facebook (scan QR code)

If you want copies of our postcard to publicise the camp to others email us at: socialistresistanceoffice@gmail.com

Find out more about the Fourth International at http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/

Help fund the FI youth camp – £5,000 financial appeal 

The Fourth International’s annual youth camp for young environmentalists, feminists and socialists who want to discuss changing the world will be held in France at the end of July.

There is already a lot of interest in joining our delegation both from people who have been to the camp before and from new activists.

And if you can help us get the word out further on protests and other events you are going to email us at socialistresistanceoffice@gmail.com to ask us to send you cards.

Some of the young people wanting to go, however, will need financial assistance. Young people are one of the groups worst hit by the cost of living crisis so many will need our support. We have therefore launched a £5,000 financial appeal in order to give them the assistance they need.

Can you help?

Please give generously.

You can pay: