What is at stake at the International Conference?

//WORLD REVOLUTION //Luke, REVO UK, League for the Fifth International //15-07-06

Introduction

There is much at stake the international conference, not least because of the importance of the conjuncture in world politics that sees an increasing mobilisation of the masses in struggle while these movements are gripped by an immense crisis of leadership.

This is particularly expressed in the movements confronting neo-liberal globalisation in Latin America and Europe where mass mobilisations have brought victories, but reformist leaderships demobilise the struggle and channel it into initiatives for the formation of supposedly “anti-neoliberal” capitalist governments.

The crisis of direction of the movements that have fought neo-liberal globalisation has resulted in strategic discussions within the movements resulting in splits, fusions and fragmentation.

It is not just the League for the Fifth International that has been through an internal crisis that resulted in a split – a similar process of conflict is underway in CWI, IST, Left Party, Rifondazione, LCR, Attac France, etc.

In Revolution the coming international conference sees three distinct political trends emerge:

• Those that want to strengthen Revolution's democratic centralism, to rise to the challenge presented by continued orientation to the movements resisting globalisation, and to retain political solidarity with the L5I.
• The former Australian section of Workers Power, now in the Permanent Revolution group, who want to use the international conference to recruit to their organisation founded on a denial of class struggle intensification in order to justify a passive propagandist set of tasks.
• Heterogeneous tendencies in the Czech and German group opposed to democratic centralism and political solidarity with the League.

Below we will critique the latter two trends in the spirit of clear and frank political argument that will no doubt continue at the conference itself.

The conference should come to a clear decision and - whatever the outcome of the debate on Revolution's line of march - we should then all unite to implement its decision.

Revolution's Historical Development

In the Tasks document I have written for the conference I have taken a brief balance sheet of the development of Revolution as an international organisation, its programme and its international structures. The basis conclusion of this is that over the last three years Revolution has been on a path towards democratic centralism and this is one we must conclude at this conference.

The document from German Revolution entitled ‘Critical Thoughts on the Coming Conference' takes a different view of Revolution's history over the past three years.

It compares the assembly at the Revo Camp in 2003 and the WRICC leadership with our current structures and says the WRICC was a stronger leadership that was both more independent and elected more democratically.

Both these arguments are wrong. Having a conference and electing a leadership that naturally affects the whole organisation at a camp is not best practice. It restricts participants in the process to those who have the time and money to attend an international camp.

At the camps in 2003 and 2004 perhaps only a third of Revolution UK's members attended, which necessarily restricted the participation. It was a necessary step to take, as it was important to take advantage of the international gathering to develop our organisation, but it was by no means a democratic model to be held up. Far more democratic is the process of discussions in national sections and election of delegations.

Secondly, the German document argues that the WRICC was a stronger and more independent leadership than the RIC, and lists the following examples of this:

“There were initial statements, there was coordination on international days of protest, there was an internationally organised campaign for Mario Bango, planning for REVOCAMP 2004, a meeting in London, an educational meeting, etc. etc.”

Strangely, no reference is made to the European Social Forum interventions, which have been the most important area for international intervention and mobilisation in preparatory meetings and the forums themselves over the last three years, and are an important example of how we developed our international leadership.

For a federal body that lacked a secretary and was not able to influence the work of the sections (because it did not have political authority) this schedule of work was a good start. However, to present it as autonomous from the League is deeply misleading.

The driving force behind the work of the WRICC at this time was Joy, who was then a full timer for Workers Power Britain in London and the League's International Youth Secretary. She was able to effectively play the role of a secretariat and helped develop the WRICC leadership. This role was invaluable and the practical work would have collapsed without it.

It was testament though to the fact that Revolution lacked its own secretariat and political leadership, which was clearly demonstrated when conflict occurred between Revolution sections. This happened particularly over the two Revo Camps, where the League's International Secretariat intervened several times in both camps to resolve disputed questions, usually over the timetable, between the Czechs and the UK Revo.

This could not be avoided as Revo was only in the beginnings of developing its own leadership; however, it was necessary for Revo to move beyond this and develop its own democratic centralism so that it could organise and take forward the political tasks it set itself, generalise the successes in the sections' work and challenge weaknesses.

I can only conclude that the false picture the German Revo document paints of the development of our structures arises not from an objective historical account but from developments in John's politics (he was the main German Revo international leader during this period).

The Vienna Conference last year, when John was still a member of the League, was a culmination of his strange apolitical campaign against the Austrian section of the League and Revo that had gone on for at least a year and seen him being disciplined by the League leadership. His comparison of Austrian Revo to the International Monetary Fund marked a new low and, amongst other things, led to his suspension from the League.

After this point John effectively withdrew himself from the work of the RIC following the Vienna conference. He posted very little on the RIC list and the main area of work he was responsible for, the international website, was not updated with RIC statements despite frequent requests. He completely abstained from Revo's political work at the ESF. He then resigned from the RIC at the German Revo Conference.

We all agree that there were problems in the work of the RIC for the first six to eight months after its foundation in Vienna, but it is a bit outrageous for these criticisms to be levelled with such severity by a section whose representative did nothing to take the work forward.

Democratic Centralism

The German Revo document points to an inconsistency in the application of democratic centralism in that the Austrian Revo group's ‘instruction' to attend the conference was not enforced while the RIC instructed the German section to allow an Austrian comrade to attend the German Revo conference.

This is an absurd argument. As was explained at the Vienna conference (and also before and afterwards) there were material constraints (financial and youth oppression) that made it impossible for the Austrian comrades to attend. An international leadership cannot demand the impossible, but it can demand elementary internationalism from its sections.

To ban a comrade from another section attending a conference is a gross breakdown in internationalism. It is particularly outrageous to claim that it was the bad comradely relations that led to this when it is John's bizarre campaign against the Austrian section that led to the breakdown of those relations in the first place. Roman from Austria was taking the initiative to restore them by attending.

The German document says that it agrees with much in the balance sheet document from Susi on the conference. In order to clarify the differences it was responsibility of the German comrades to say what they do and do not agree with in Susi's document thus having the clearest possible political argument and avoiding any possibility of unprincipled combinationism.

The document from Susi is much more consistent in its approach. It makes a whole series of failings in the work of the RIC over the last period that I would generally agree with (two WTO statements, website uploading, lack of communication, lack of reporting, etc). However, the difference is that Susi blames an excess of centralism for these problems, whereas I would argue that more centralism is required, i.e. a regularly meeting secretariat that is accountable to the RIC, that produces and circulates minutes, that informs members of decisions, ensures material is produced, and so on.

Its worth noting however that the alternative constitution from the Czech Revo group is effectively democratic centralist in all but name as it has regular delegate meetings, binding decisions and leadership that acts with authority. It is therefore, slightly inconsistent with Susi's balance sheet as it would in practice necessitate the use of centralism to enforce decisions of the delegate meeting unless the delegate meeting becomes an advisory body with national sections not required to carry out its decisions.

The German comrades argue that they are not opposed to democratic centralism but only to the existence of what they call the League's ‘secret faction' in Revo.

If this is true then it is a real shift in John's politics because he left the GAM citing the difference that he did not believe democratic centralism should apply to fighting propaganda groups. If he has changed his position then he has duty as a revolutionary to tell us why he was wrong before and account for that change.

The League, Revolution and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA 1957 – 61)

The German Revolution group have done us a service in bringing the documents of the YSA into this discussion because they are invaluable in their political lessons. They show how the US SWP grappled with the problem of youth-party relations in the 57 – 61.

There are two things comrades should know about this context and the authorship of the documents in order to understand this discussion. The US SWP at this time was part of the International Committee of the Fourth International, a left centrist break from the Pabloite United Secretariat for the Fourth International. However, it was on a path back to Pabloism that it would complete in 1961 .

The two figures who wrote the main documents concerning youth, Walforth and Robertson, went on to become members of the Healyites and Spartacists respectively. I believe that the Germans correctly make reference to this point. This is why the document was originally published by the Spartacists and is available on the International Bolshevik Tendency website (who also come from the Spartacist tradition).

These documents from the YSA are important in showing a series of different approaches to the youth-party relation, but the summation of them given in the German Revo document is deeply one-sided and misleading.

Firstly, both the Spartacists and the International Bolshevik Tendency hold the position of ‘organisationally independent but ultimately politically subordinate' (‘The Leninist Position on Youth-Party Relations, Marxist Bulletin no.7, p.1). This is a position that Revolution and the League reject. It makes a mockery of an organisation's independence if another organisation simply intervened to overrule them on decisive questions.

The German Revolution document claims that it is quite right to argue this in the YSA because the Socialist Workers Party (SWP (US)) identified itself as a revolutionary party. This is completely wrong because the SWP (US) was not even close to being a mass revolutionary party but was rather a small centrist propaganda organisation.

As the League's own theses on communist youth organisation make clear, the question of communist trade unions, women's and youth organisation accepting the political leadership of a revolutionary party only arises where there is already a mass communist party and even then the youth organisation must voluntarily accept the leadership of the Communist Party and have their views represented in the Communist Party itself (‘Communist Principles of youth organisation', Fifth International no.2, p.99-100).

This is quite different from the entirely wrong concept of ‘political subordination' held by the Spartacists and IBT (which they hold whether the party is mass or not). Of course, in practice, there would be splits if reformists, centrists, etc. started struggling for the leadership of the youth organisation but these must be won through hard political argument and struggle not through tutelage.

The documents from the YSA and SWP on the question are useful because they reveal quite clearly that there was a real discussion in those organisations around the question and do not simply regurgitate the line of the IBT and Sparts.

The document by Murray Weiss, ‘Letter to SWP Political Committee Youth Policy 14 June 1959', gives the clearest and most consistent argument in favour of the ‘adult' revolutionary organisation bringing its political disagreements into the youth organisation.

He argues correctly for the progressive role that the fight to build a mass youth organisation can play in the fight for a revolutionary party. However, his renegading on SWP's democratic centralism reflects the fact that he was on the right wing of the SWP most sympathetic to Pablo; Walforth and Robertson were actually his young left critics.

For example Weiss says they must create a ‘reinvigorated movement towards Marxism among the American youth… the SWP youth have every right to want to participate in equal terms with other left wing comrades. It doesn't want to take up the ridiculous and self-defeating position that it expects everyone to participate in such a promising development of ideological life with an open mind, but as for the SWP members… they will merely state what the official views of the party may be and expect everyone to accept that' (Weiss 1959).

His right centrism is completely apparent in that he puts forward the petit bourgeois and liberal notion of an ‘open mind', freedom of expression, and so forth, and argues this will create a ‘promising ideological life' for their own members. This ‘ideological life' was to be a project of regroupment with left Stalinism. Gone was the Leninist combat organisation committed to fighting reformism (social democratic and Stalinist) and centrism, that had been founded in 1938.

Effectively, Weiss's approach would not result in a ‘promising ideological life' - it would be the end of the revolutionary organisation addressing the class strategically. Had the League operated such a policy over the last two years, our internal struggle would have been public knowledge long ago. And, if a small organisation is publicly split down the middle there is little meaning left in the Leninist notion of unity in action.

If Weiss is completely wrong, how can we understand the youth-party relation? An excellent place to look, alongside the League's own thesis, is the article from Tim Wolforth ‘Youth Report to Eighteenth National Convention of the SWP June 1959'. Here, Wolforth clearly articulates what is effectively the League's own position as he seemingly had not developed the position of ‘political subordination' in 1959. The German comrades document quotes this document highly selectively and in a way that is quite misleading.

Wolforth is clear that the SWP play a leading, catalyst role in the YSA in the same way the League has done in Revolution. He says:

“Without the SWP forces this youth movement could not have been created. The political line of the party also was attractive to young people looking for a road out of the crisis. Finally, the organisational approach of the party was crucial. The party based its policy on recognition of the organizational independence of the youth. It did not attempt to dictate to the youth. Without such a flexible policy we would not have been able to fuse with the Left Wing or reach out to the young people formerly around the Stalinists” (Wolforth 1959)

His articulation of the relationship is absolutely correct and is the same position as that of the League, particularly when he says:

“The content of party-youth relations in any period is political solidarity between youth and the party but the organisational independence for the youth. The form this relationship takes varies from period to period. It may be expressed in open affiliation, or in fraternal relations, or, as is presently the case, in informal cooperation.” (Wolforth 1959)

The document from German Revolution quotes the following paragraph, again in a misleading way, because it excludes the references to leadership and political solidarity that affirm the League's understanding of Revolution's development:

“The youth movement is neither an opponent organisation within which the party members operate as a fraction nor a simple appendage of the party. The youth should rather be looked upon as a section of the revolutionary movement united with the party by bonds of political solidarity. However, the youth movement must have its own organisational life with its own leadership, internal discussions, etc. No young person in his right mind (and these are the only young people we want) would join a youth group if it policies were determined by a caucus of that group composed of members of an adult party. The quickest way to kill the youth movement is to impose this type of discipline within it” (Walforth 1959).

The question thus posed is what constitutes the organisation of a fraction within a youth organisation, as this is the contentious question raised in the German Revolution document:

“Perhaps we, independent members of Revo, are not in our right mind for having joined a group in which the policies are determined by a caucus group – but we believe sincerely in the communist principle of the independence of the youth movement and are convinced that REVOLUTION can develop in this direction.
Our demand is to dissolve the LFI faction within Revo – Revo's relationship to the LFI, which we have defined as one of political solidarity, must be built on political discussion with the whole organization.”

In short, if the youth organisation must act in political solidarity with the party rather than being politically subordinate (the wrong position we have dismissed) how is the party to influence the development of the youth organisation?

The League: a sinister secret faction or revolutionary organisation?

To put the question another way: how is Wolforth's view that the SWP ‘political line' played a vital role in the development of the YSA compatible with the idea of not having a faction within the youth organisation? Secondarily, the question is, have the League behaved like a faction within Revo since its inception?

I would argue, as I believe I did at the German Revolution conference, that a flexible and dialectical approach is necessary, which is perfectly in the spirit of Walforth's 1959 document (but not later documents for the reasons we have outlined), the League's own youth thesis and our practice in Revolution at all levels.

It would be quite wrong if the League decided a line on each and every political, tactical and organisational question within Revolution and its members turned up to Revolution meetings and block voted en masse to drive through a policy. Walworth's refrain that ‘no youth in their right mind would join such an organisation' is quite right. This would de facto constitute tutelage and a youth oppressive approach to the party-youth organisation relation.

However, the absolute opposite of this position would also be quite wrong i.e. if the League never discussed the Revo work and never made proposals to Revo on its work, Revolution would not have made the developments that it has made. We should remember that Walforth shared this view in his 1959 document because he argued that without the SWP's organisational and political policy towards the YSA ‘the youth movement could not have been created' (Walforth 1959).

The League's intervention within Revolution generally has two components to it. On the one hand at a local branch level League members will seek to lead and direct Revolution's local campaigning work, while in my experience this naturally means that Workers Power discuss the Revo work frequently I have rarely known, indeed I cannot think of an instance, where we ‘agreed a line' and went to fight for it in the local Revo group. Nevertheless, we naturally make proposals to the Revo group, these often may be changed or adapted during the Revo meeting if there are arguments against them, and indeed there may be arguments between League members.

The other component is the question of Revolution's development as an organisation. Here, it is true that the League has taken a position to argue on several occasions over the last five years for certain steps forward to be taken we believe to be necessary: the development of Revolution as an international organisation, the development of its first federal leadership, the passing of a Road to Revolution manifesto, orientation to the anti-capitalist movement, call for a youth and Fifth International, democratic centralist structure and leadership.

The question is not whether the League should have imposed discipline on its members (as the voting at the Vienna conference shows, the League didn't do this with any force anyway i.e. some League members voted against the proposal) but whether these developments were correct and whether Revolution had the democratic structures within which they could be opposed and challenged?

I would argue that these strategic proposals were both correct and that Revolution has developed the structures in which they can be genuinely discussed, indeed the international conference provides clear evidence for the latter.

The German Revolution document makes much of describing the League as the ‘L5I Majority' and complains that the League will make up ‘at least 75% of the delegates' at the coming International Conference. Whether it is true that the League will have this number I don't know but it should be pointed out that the delegations have been elected by national Revolution groups democratically. If it is true the League will have that number, then this reflects its leading role, and the bonds of political solidarity that exist between Revolution and the League.

If the comrades from German Revolution are opposed to any of these proposals then they need to develop a political platform on which to fight them. If they are not opposed to them then the discussion is around how we best implement them and the tactical questions they pose.

Furthermore, if the League did not make such proposals to Revolution then the question of political solidarity becomes completely devoid of any meaning - i.e. it would mean being in political solidarity only in the abstract without there being any real bond between the two groups.

What is certainly true is that without genuine democratic centralism and authoritative leadership, Revolution will be prone to the kind of League intervention that appears bureaucratic, which we saw during the organisation of the RevoCamps in Prague in 2003 and 2004.

The Australian Permanent Revolution Group

One of the most important factors in the decision by the International Faction to split from the League, which was revealed in their leaked emails, was the prospect that Michelle from Australia could intervene into the Revolution conference not under the discipline of the League.

A breakdown of the leaked emails can be read here

Typical, for a faction engaged in an unprincipled split campaign, little political argument on Revolution's future was presented but only the need to maximise the damage on Revolution that was cynically described in one email as ‘their project' [i.e. the project of the L5I!).

The PR group clearly see the Revolution International Conference as an opportunity to ‘maximise the chaos and disarray into the ranks of the organisation it leaves behind' (Mark H, 23rd June). The task document from Michelle should be seen very much in this context, and once viewed in this context its complete cynicism and disdain for theory becomes evident.

The document is basically presented in two parts. It firstly puts forward in embryonic form the Permanent Revolution Group's perspective, and secondly, it brings forward a proposal for a new leadership based on a whole series of commissions.

The International Perspectives component of it is perhaps the crudest articulation of the PR group's politics yet – and this is really something given that their positions were generally characterised as crude and deeply one-sided.

Adopting a vulgar economic determinism, it dismisses the mass class struggle in France as ‘defensive' and the rapid expansion of capitalism in China as necessarily stabilising because it has meant economic growth. The prospect of mass resistance to the global bosses offensive as presenting the potential to be transformed into an offensive struggle is not even considered.

On this perspectival note we can agree wholeheartedly with the document from German Revolution that says:

“In the mass movements against war and neoliberalism in the past few years, young people have played a bearing role. In France and Chile we saw once again how young people make up the mass of demonstrators, but lack their own political voice. The leadership of these movements is made up of established reformist parties; to radicalize the youth and break them from this leadership, we call for the creation of independent, revolutionary youth organisations, united in a youth international.”

Such an approach appears NOWHERE in the tasks document from Michelle. Given this agreement we have with the German Revo group on the perspectival and strategic question, I would naturally expect them to support the tasks document which I drafted over the rampant defeatism of the PR group.

Not content with an awful perspective, the rest of the document from the PR group is simply opportunist. On the LFI and democratic centralism they say the following:

“If we are to realistically look at implementing DC, it's become clear that we will need to start to break away from our dependence on the LFI and start building real & independent structures from which to operate. While the LFI presence and support has been absolutely essential in the building of Revolution, we are now unfortunately in a position where the majority of work is concentrated among a very small number of LFI cadre, and we still very much dependent on the material resources of the LFI.”

Is this the same comrades who described Revo as a ‘project of the LFI' and toyed with the idea of using the conference to fight for Revo to break completely with the LFI? Comrades should read the evidence and see for themselves how dishonest this proposal is.

The PR group obviously want to present themselves as ‘the nice guys' looking for consensus.

Their muddle-headed proposal for a series of commissions that follows is in this spirit. Far from being a recipe for a democratic centralist Revolution it is a recipe for an impotent Revolution.

In truth the PR group have no interest in Revolution whatsoever.

This is clearly shown by the decision that Australian section of the League took at its pre-congress aggregate prior to the split to “pull back from Revo for the moment, except where needed internationally. We only have one non-WP member of Revolution and hope to recruit them in coming months.” From this it is apparent that Australian Revolution barely exists – two PR members, one non-PR member – and it sees Revolution merely as a question of recruitment to its organisation rather than actually building it.

The question we ask of the PR group is do they still stand by the League's youth thesis? If so they should argue for active political solidarity with a revolutionary organisation, an active orientation to the youth and a revolutionary youth international. The PR group on the one hand withdraw from Revo, and on the other do not even have the confidence to push the logical argument from their view for political solidarity with PR.

Their document is opportunism run wild, hoping to appeal to anti-League sentiment in order to cynically win people to collaborate with them on a non-programmatic and apolitical basis.

Conclusion: what kind of Revolution do we want to build?

I hope that I have responded clearly to the criticisms raised by the German Revolution group particularly in reference to our theoretical approach and the lessons of the YSA.

I believe that Revolution must hold course. We need a strong leadership in place if we are to raise to the challenge of fighting for a revolutionary youth international in the resistance movements to globalisation, build on and generalise the successes of the sections' work and overcome the weaknesses.

This means that the international conference must discuss seriously what kind of Revolution it wants to build and what lessons it must learn from the work. The document from Roman on how to build a revolutionary youth organisation is thus essential as it emphasises an active campaigning and an outward orientation rather than a passive propagandist approach.

The arguments around structure, leadership and perspective we have dealt with in this document must not allow us to lose sight of this important issue as I think there is a debate to be had here.

For example, at the German Revolution conference, Roman and I both brought forward criticisms of the campaign proposal of the German group and Roman submitted a document on the issue to the German Revo leadership.

In my view a vital task of the incoming leadership will be to develop the work of the sections and generalise those methods shown in practice to be successful.

Luke C
15-07-06