International Work Tasks Document

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

Background

1. At the conference in Vienna in 2005 we set ourselves the task of developing an authoritative, international, political leadership for Revolution based on a democratic centralist constitution.

2. The development of this form of organisation flowed from the fact that over the preceding two to three years Revolution had developed an international political programme, The Road to Revolution, at international camps, as well as establishing an international leadership co-ordination.

3. These programmatic and organisational developments were responses to developments in the anti-war and anti-capitalist movements, and a general youth radicalisation that offered major opportunities for working class emancipation while at the same time suffering from crippling crisis of leadership i.e. lack of revolutionary socialist direction.

4. Following the huge mobilisation against the Iraq war in 2003 we began to address young activists in the social forum movement with our political programme and call for a revolutionary youth international to lead the struggles against war, racism and neo-liberalism.

5. At forums in Paris, London, Mumbai, Porto Alegre and Athens we have raised the call for a youth international and sought to mobilise young people in struggle against, war, racism and neo-liberalism.

6. The biggest success we have had came at the London ESF when we held a youth assembly that agreed, by majority vote after a political argument and struggle with other forces, to endorse our call for a youth international and for various mobilisations.

7. We have not raised this exclusively in the social forum movement but also, for example, at a conference of left nationalists in the Basque country, at the G8 mobilisations in the UK, and with school students in Bolivia (after we were put in touch by a League comrade who visited the country during the revolutionary situation in 2005). On the whole though, our focus for the call has been the big social forums.

8. It is the fight for this political programme and policy internationally that necessitates the development of an international leadership that can act with political authority in discussions with other groups and tendencies, and, indeed, can be held to account over the success or failure of the implementation of a political strategy agreed by the international delegate conference.

9. The development of our leadership has not been without problems of organisation and communication. Nevertheless, it is a course we should continue, as democratic centralism is a form of organisation that, by uniting our sections in a common unified struggle, gives us the best opportunity for victory against the forces of capital.

10. We must improve the effectiveness and implementation of our democratic centralism to rise to the tasks we face in fighting for a revolutionary youth international.

11. We have not made the most of the successes we have had (e.g. London ESF) in terms of follow through, professional contact work, that can lead to the founding of new Revolution sections. This makes a democratic centralist leadership more necessary, not less. Where we have founded a new Revo group, in Switzerland, this has been because of the bilateral work of one Revolution section, rather than the international leadership as a collective whole.

12. Furthermore, the Revolution sections themselves have seen an uneven development, as successes amongst school students in the north of England and Austria have not been repeated elsewhere. The task of an international democratic centralist leadership, besides searching out new contacts, members and sections, is also to generalise success across our existing Revolution sections, and likewise learn the lessons of stagnation and decline so they are not repeated elsewhere.

13. This provides the background to the tasks we face today: boldly responding to the crisis of reformist leadership in the workers and social movements by fighting for revolutionary Marxist politics and seeking to organise and recruit newly radicalised youth as a stimulus to the radicalisation of wider layers of workers and the oppressed.

International mobilisations and interventions

14. The central task of the incoming leadership will be to organise the struggle for a revolutionary youth international through intervention into international conferences and mobilisations.

15. We have had plenty of experience of these interventions. While we still need to improve our contact work and follow up, we have been able to dramatically raise our profile within the left, and are well known as a group fighting for a youth and Fifth International.

16. We expect over the coming period for there to be increased opportunity to address wider layers of youth and students with the call for a revolutionary youth international because of the increasing intensification of class struggle resistance to neo-liberal globalisation.

17. We will naturally continue to focus our attention and resources on resistance to neo-liberalism in Europe given the concentration of our main sections there.

18. We will try to keep sending at least one delegate to each of the EPA's. Here, we will keep raising the issue of the need for assemblies at the ESF for the youth, as well as pointing to the existing structure's youth oppressive character. We will link this to the need for EPA to take the struggle of the youth seriously, assist developing international students coordination of resistance and ultimately support the formation of a youth international

19. The aftermath of the victory over the CPE in France, and the development of significant student movements in other countries (Spain, Greece, Italy), has led to the coalescence of a pan-European student movement that was evident at the Athens ESF and provides a central arena for the struggle for a youth international over the coming period.

20. We will need to have a professional intervention into the international student conference that is taking place in Rome in the Autumn, sending a number of comrades to intervene around our politics and youth international slogan, and to make contacts.

21. We will need to continue to translate our call for the Youth International into several languages, and update the call as necessary in the light of new developments both within the campaign and in the wider political context.

22. We will look for opportunities to raise the call for a revolutionary youth international with larger forces in countries where we have sections. In Britain, this means an orientation to the campaign for a new workers party and in Germany, working with the resistance to the Merkel government attacks and the Left Party formation. However, both these countries have not seen mass youth mobilisations on the scale of other European states in 2005 (Italy, France, Greece) for several years.

23. Latin America remains a continent witnessing a mass radicalisation of large sections of society. This has been particularly expressed in the rise of Lula, Kirchner and Chavez, who are all, to differing degrees, left populists. We will aim to send someone, preferably a Spanish speaker, to the next major social forum on the continent and we will also consider sending someone to intervene at short notice if a major struggle erupts, like, for example, the energy nationalisation struggle in Bolivia last year.

24. We will send someone to the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007 to raise our call, make contacts and discuss revolutionary socialist politics with individuals and tendencies, in the hope of finding a group willing to launch Revolution in Africa.

Development of propaganda output

25. We have produced ad hoc statements on international events over the last period (e.g. Athens ESF, France) and these have often been put on national websites and circulated in leaflets. However, we have been very poor at using the international website as the main output for our propaganda with very little being put up on the website (last update was in November 2005 at time of French banlieue youth uprising).

26. The international website must become the main forum for our propaganda output and we should aim for to produce one statement per month that we put on it geared towards our work in winning contacts, supporters of the revolutionary youth international call, and members in other countries.

27. The site should also report on the work of the national Revolution groups, their mobilisations, campaigns, etc.

28. We should change the format of the site to work on a “php” basis, which means you just need a username and password to access the site from any computer and therefore allows for a number of people from different sections to work on developing the website.

29. We will produce an international pamphlet on Women's Oppression by the Autumn and this will be available to download from the international site.

Leadership and Organisation

30. These tasks and political strategy necessitate a dramatic improvement in our leadership structures. We need to make our democratic centralism real and that means developing a political centre that directs the work.

31. The Executive Bureau established at the Vienna conference failed primarily because a) we erroneously believed that it would work without specifying that it must meet fortnightly and, secondarily, b) one of the members became much less active on the Revolution leadership shortly after the Vienna conference.

32. We will elect a Revolution leadership at the Prague conference who must act as a political leadership, organising and directing the work of Revolution internationally.

33. The incoming Revolution International Council will elect an Secretariat made of three members able to meet fortnightly.

34. The Secretariat will be in regular communication using skype and email with the other Revolution International sections and will stimulate discussion of tasks and work on the International Council list.

35. The International Council list will continue to pass statements and calls after discussion over email.

36. The Secretariat will naturally function as a political body given that we expect it to launch discussions with individuals and groups regarding building new Revolution sections, our programme, political positions, and so on.

37. The secretariat will report its work, and is accountable to the International Council that will continue, as stated, to take decisions over email. The secretariat will produce minutes of its meetings and circulate them to the International Council list.

38. We will hold a meeting of the International Council in January 2007 that will take a balance sheet of the international work, discuss the national sections' work, direct that work where necessary and discuss political statements and theses.

39. We will aim for the International Council to meet every six months. This may mean members of it from Indonesia and Australia may not be able to attend all its meetings but can have input over email.

40. We must improve reportage of national work to the International Council e-list and the incoming secretariat must chase the national sections up if reports are not forthcoming. As a rule, sections should report to their work to the International Council list every two months.

41. We need to make sure that Revolution Switzerland and Indonesia become fully integrated into our international tendency. We will assign one or two more experienced members of the International Council to regularly discuss with them their work and tasks.

42. We will hold another international delegate meeting in the Spring/Summer of 2008.

Work in Indonesia

43. The Revolution International Council needs to give political and organisational support to our Indonesian section over the coming period. The incoming RIC will work with the incoming secretariat to make sure that we are in regular communication with the section and give them good organisational and political guidance on their work possibly through setting up a commission.

44. We will work continue to work closely with the L5I's leadership in this work who have hitherto provided financial and political support to the development of the Indonesian section, intend to continue and increase this and, in particular, want to produce propaganda that answers some of the big questions faced by the Indonesian group (e.g. political Islamism, Maoism, etc).

International Contact Work

45. We have set up an international email address that has allowed us to have discussions with contacts in Hong Kong, Phillipines, France, Belgium, Pakistan and many other places over the last period. While none of these has yet resulted in a group we need to continue to make sure that contacts are followed up, and reports are made to the International Council on discussions we have with them.

46. We have not been good at reporting this work. We must improve at this. The incoming Secretariat will take on the processing of this contact work from Josh who will focus on national organising over the next period.

47. The secretariat and the RIC will make a major effort to develop and consolidate our Pakistani contacts into a functional and internationally integrated Revolution section.

Work of the Revolution sections

48. We have to establish an active concept of building REVOLUTION. Sections should choose an issue on which an active campaign is organised that includes a broad basis, brings our revolutionary policies to wide layers of the youth and leads to more anchorage amongst the youth. If Revo groups (local branches or sections) have problems with campaigning work they should contact the RIC. The role of the RIC is working out a concept for the whole section to be able to organise a campaign. Each section should produce a plan of their campaigning work in the autumn for the RIC.”

49. One of the central tasks facing the Prague conference is to take a critical assessment of the work of the sections, weaknesses that need to be addressed and successes that need to be generalised.

50. The discussion of the document on methodology of building the sections will be central to the development of a unified approach to our work.

51. The incoming International Council needs to regularly monitor the work of the sections and this means that sections must produce regular reports for it. The incoming secretariat will be tasked with chasing up these reports and ensuring that they are delivered on time and will stimulate collective discussion of them on the RIC list, and so on.

Conclusion

52. We need a democratic centralist leadership, with a functioning secretariat to see through these political tasks we have set ourselves.

53. We need to generalise the successes of our work and challenge weaknesses in Revolution internationally.

54. We have great opportunities to grow and be successful in a period of increasing class struggle arising out of the destabilising social and political contradictions of neo-liberal globalisation.

55. To take advantage of these opportunities means being united in following agreed tasks, means having an authoritative political leadership that organises the struggle for our Trotskyist politics. In short, a democratic centralist approach to our organisational structures must be combined with agitational campaigning, and the revolutionary socialist politics embodied in our transitional programme.