International Balance Sheet for Prague Conference 2006

//WORLD REVOLUTION //2nd International Delegate Conference, Prague //

Background

From 2003 onwards we have sought to develop Revolution as an international organisation. We have united around a common political programme, and developed an international leadership, we have also developed an orientation to the resistance to neo-liberalism and addressed that resistance with the call for a revolutionary youth international to lead and organise the struggle of youth.

We believed rightly that young people can act as a catalyst to the radicalisation of wider layers of the working class and oppressed.

The 2005 Vienna Conference was the first genuinely democratic, i.e. delegate based, international meeting. This was an important step for us to take, likewise was the decision of the meeting to develop an international democratic centralist constitution as the form of organisation most appropriate to the tasks we have set ourselves.

The development of this international work has gone alongside an uneven development of our Revolution sections internationally, we have had successes amongst schools students in Austria and the North of England but have struggled to repeat these elsewhere.

Implementing democratic centralism

We have experienced many problems in the adoption of a DC leadership to Revolution. The Vienna Conference elected an Executive Bureau, which completely failed to meet. The remainder of the RIC maintain communication via the e-list. The level of communication was very poor up until January 2006, but this improved after January after a discussion was launched on the leadership problems on the RIC list.

The failure to implement the Executive Bureau is the central problem in the work of the RIC. Revolution continues to lack an international centre that can organise its work. This failure arose because a) we erroneously believed that a bureau could function with three members in different cities, and b) one of the bureau's members became less active in Revolution leadership work after the Vienna conference.

We can also add that the move towards democratic centralism at the Vienna Conference was in hindsight rushed and done without adequate planning and discussions in the national sections. This must be put right in the run up to the Prague conference where a full political discussion should be had on the nature of democratic centralist organization.

As Marxists we agree on the terrain of ideas that democratic centralism is the form of organisation we fight for across the workers' and social movements. But furthermore we have to establish agreement that we want to build an active outward-oriented combat organisation. It's not enough to agree on democratic centralism on the terrain of ideas. The necessity of democratic centralism can only be understood in the praxis of a combat organisation. Only through democratic discussion inside the organisation and implementing the decisions through a centralist leadership we can lead protests of the youth and can be victorious in the struggle against capital.

In particular, democratic centralism is necessitated for Trotskyists where international programmatic agreement on strategy and tasks for our tendency is developed and a leadership put in place to fight for that programme and implement those agreed tasks. International democratic centralism, therefore is a natural development in any Marxist organization, youth or otherwise, serious about fighting for its ideas.

The lack of preparation and planning of the move towards democratic centralism was not just a practical question regarding whether we had the resources but rather the Vienna conference was not politically planned well enough and therefore its decisions did not have the political authority and decisiveness they should have had.

Nevertheless, the struggle for a youth international amongst the movements resisting neo-liberal globalisation does necessitate us struggling to develop an authoritative political leadership – i.e. democratic centralist leadership – for Revolution. We were right to make this step, and we are right now struggle to “make it so” in practical terms.

The lack of groundwork and planning partially explains the political differences that have emerged on the RIC over the move to democratic centralism that naturally effect the implementation of it. The coming Prague conference must have a full political debate on democratic centralism, make a firm decision as to how to proceed.

International mobilisations and work

Since 2003 we have intervened actively into the anti-capitalist and social forum movement raising revolutionary socialist politics, the revolutionary youth international as the central strategic task facing youth resistance, fighting the reformist direction of the social forum leadership and for a Fifth International.

We have raised this strategic message in differing scales of mobilisations at the forums of Florence, Paris, Porto Alegre, Mumbai, London, Athens. We have also raised the youth international through intervention into the Segi Conference in the Basque Country, Bolivian Students Co-Ordination, World Youth Festival In Caracas, at the summit sieges (G8 Scotland, WTO Hong Kong) and various national mobilisations.

We have become experienced at these international mobilisations. We have also organised international camps that have brought together Revolution groups from our different sections although participation in these has been uneven with some groups mobilising more for them than others.

Since the Vienna Conference our two main international mobilisations have been to the European Social Forum and into the struggle against the CPE in France. The intervention at the European Social Forum was well planned by the RIC, the leadership it appointed for Athens met regularly, it produced a statement on the youth international and the participation in the work of the mobilisation from the different sections delegations was good.

In contrast, the intervention into the CPE struggle, although very good, was mainly organise by Revolution in the UK and that was a sign that the RIC still could not respond as a leadership to struggles that burst onto the international political stage at short notice. However, that said the RIC did pass a statement on that struggle, and also passed one on the November uprising in France in the suburbs.

Communication between sections and over-seeing of the work

We have incorporated a Swiss section into Revolution, which is an excellent step, but this has mainly been achieved through the work of the German Revolution group. Likewise, the integration of our Indonesian section has been hampered due to communication problems, and the RIC has not discussed this work enough. Although RIC members have autonomously offered help and support to the section. Again, this work is hampered by a lack of a political centre and the failure of the executive bureau to function.

The RIC remains in the dark over section memberships, activities and leaderships. This must change at the Prague conference beginning with the reports of sections work. We must from the Prague conference onwards develop a culture of regular reporting organised by a political centre.

We have developed good trust between sections over the last period, but the actions of the German section in the exclusion of a RIC member in their March conference was both irresponsible and undemocratic, and contributed to the break down of trust between the two sections. We are an international organisation, and it's not acceptable for sections to pick and choose who they invite to conferences and who they don't.

If the German section had been experiencing problems with this particular RIC member, it should have been raised in the RIC, or in need of confidentiality, should have requested a meeting of the Executive Bureau to discuss this issue (even though the bureau wasn't functioning individuals on it could have been contacted).

In the end, via a RIC intervention of the conference, the barred comrade was allowed to participate in some sessions although he was still excluded from most. Although the barred comrade made constructive contributions to the conference, the German section did not apologise for their behaviour. The comradely relations cannot be restored until the German section understands that their behaviour was a breakdown of internationalism and against our principles and apologies in a written form for their decision.

The RIC played an important role in this process and the organisation of an intervention from the RIC by two comrades was a good example of an international leadership in action and beginning to function as such. Nevertheless, the German section did defy the wishes of the international leadership and it was therefore both an example of democratic centralism functioning and it being ignored and flouted by a section that should have accepted the international decision.

The RIC has continually failed to keep itself informed of the status of sections and contacts – and efforts need to be made to establish a reporting structure, where sections can report, ideally quarterly, on their progress, their membership & their upcoming activities. There are sections whose tasks overlap (ie, anti-fascism), and it would be ideal to have the ability to share this knowledge when overlap is occurring.

We should also strive towards building sections which are open to Revolution internationally, sections that involve international participation whenever possible – such as camp participation, conference participation, and international interventions. The RIC should be facilitating these encouraging actions, and likewise, sections should be involving the RIC in these endeavours. International Revo Camps are an excellent place to start with this sort of organisation, where the RIC should be providing leadership and work closely with the involved sections.

International Contact Work

One positive step we have taken is organising our international contact work through the development of an international e-mail address. This has allowed us to develop regular communication with international contacts in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Greece, Pakistan, France, and various other places. We have followed up the contacts made in Athens at the ESF and in the French CPE struggle using this email facility. However, this work has not been properly reported to the RIC nor done systematically enough again reflecting the absence of a political centre.

Development of the Revolution Sections

We need to take a systematic and rigorous approach to discussing the work of the sections at the coming conference. Their development has been uneven with the most successful being the Austrian group leading a large-scale school strike in November 2005. We have also had successes in the north of England, while other sections have had trouble developing a successful growth strategy.

The RIC has failed to discuss reports of section work, let alone critically evaluate it or give political support, advice and direction. This must change if we are serious about learning the lessons of success and failure in the work, generalising the former and tackling the latter.

Propaganda Output

We have not produced enough reports and statements on world events. However, more critically, we have not made good enough use of those reports that we have produced.

For instance, we have written a lot of material in terms of programmatic proposals and reports on the European Social Forum and the CPE struggle in France but none of this appears on the international website (last updated in November in the banlieue uprising statement).

We must increase our propaganda output and see through the proposal for a pamphlet on women's oppression by the Autumn. We must also develop an international website that many people can upload to from different countries so we can have a good, international, collective team working on it.

Conclusion

The RIC has experienced a turbulent year of operation, one that we should learn from. Our errors in communication and the carrying out of tasks are easily rectifiable with some strong decisions and agreed structure coming out of the 2006 conference. We have an embryonic international leadership, we need to settle our political differences at the coming conference, and move forward with a firm set of tasks, and democratic centralist leadership to implement them over the coming period.

The difficulties in the international work can be put right by having an international conference that is very well prepared in political and practical terms. Holding these international delegate conferences and respecting their authority to go forward and lead the work is evidence that we have an embryonic democratic centralism. However, this must be strengthened if we are to rise to the tasks that we set ourselves.

This means the conference must urgently establish a political centre to organise and lead work even if it is just two or three comrades at first. The numbers are not so crucial, the central question is that it must be able to meet fortnightly at least, it must therefore be concentrated in one city, it must circulate decisions and proposals to the RIC, it must direct the external contact work, it must stimulate discussions on the RIC, it must chase reports from sections.

In short, we need to organise, professionalise the work if we are to successfully fight for our political programme on the world stage.