Statement on 2nd International Delegate Conference

//WORLD REVOLUTION //International Coordination Comittee //
Revolution held its 2nd International Delegate Conference over the last two and a half days in Prague, Czech Republic. There were delegates present from the UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Australia and Sweden, but not unfortunately from our Swiss or Indonesian section for schooling and financial reasons respectively.

The Conference came after a period in which Revolution had taken important steps forward in some states, and developed a number of new international contacts, but also suffered some reverses. The conference itself was marked by discussions over Revolution's structure, approach, orientation and relationship to the League for the Fifth International.

The delegate from Australian Revolution, a member of the Permanent Revolution group that recently split from the League for the Fifth International, sought to take advantage of these differences to carry out a plan to split Revolution and recruit new sympathisers for their tendency.

This was resisted by the majority of the delegates who argued, based on the leaked emails that led to the L5I split, the Australian section report to Conference, and the actions of their delegate, that the Australian Revolution group did not exist. It was simply a cynical front-organisation for the Permanent Revolution group, who had no intention of building Revolution as an independent socialist youth organisation.

Following the full day of discussion where this became clear, a resolution was put to the conference that stated that Revolution Australia was no longer part of our international organisation and was therefore afforded no rights or responsibilities. It was made clear that if they still agreed with our programme they could naturally remain sympathisers if they so wished.

This resolution was passed by a majority of thirteen to five, after which the five delegates opposed to the resolution walked out of the conference reading from a pre-prepared statement.

Here we will outline the political arguments over Revolution's future that took place at the conference. We will show the evidence that led to the majority of delegates taking the action they did against Australian Revolution and also we call on the three German and one Czech delegate that left the conference to return to our international organisation to fight together around our agreed decisions. We say the same to all the members in the sections they represent.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the conference there was a dispute over the delegate size of the German group who asked for five votes for their three delegates on the basis of an increased membership since the Revolution Germany conference. There was some opposition to this from other delegates, but a member of the UK delegation proposed accepting the German's proposal as he did not want it create bad feeling, being aware there would be political arguments at the conference itself. However, when it was made clear that the German Revolution Conference had elected just three delegates the conference voted to give them only three votes.

The political debates at the Conference

The differences were on strategic questions about how a revolutionary youth organisation has to be built. These included questions on our approach to building Revolution as an international organisation, our structures and the relationship to the League for the Fifth International. There was a pre-conference debate and different polemics about these questions. Also at the conference there was a long discussion with all arguments aired.

The majority of the delegates stressed the importance of an action based youth organisation orientated to the resistance movements to globalisation. Over the last three years we have addressed all those young people fighting neo-liberalism with the call for an independent revolutionary youth international united around a Trotskiyst programme.

This has entailed us developing our own organisation to respond to these challenges. This has included an international organisation, a common political programme and international leadership structures. At last year's international delegate conference we took a further step of creating for the first time a democratic centralist international leadership.

The implementation of this had many problems and all delegates were agreed on the practical problems, but major differences arose around the solutions. One Czech delegate and the German delegation in particular argued that it was necessary to go backwards to federalist structure while the majority favoured strengthening the day-to-day leadership and thereby improving democratic debate and decision making on the Revolution International Council at the same time as emphasising the importance of internal debate and discussion locally.

We believe that it is democratic centralist structures that offer the most democratic and effective form of organisation to take forward the struggle of the working class and oppressed, because they grant maximum freedom in debate and maximum unity in action with appropriate adaptations to each sphere of struggle.

We believe that to fight effectively for a revolutionary youth organisation today, responding pro-actively to the rising class struggles across the globe, a strong leadership needs to be built to take forward our work and found new sections of Revolution. Only a strong authoritative leadership that is elected democratically and accountable to our membership can rise to these challenges.

The work of the international leadership over the last year was particularly criticised in the balance sheet from the Czech section as being guilty of over-centralism, however the conference believed that a lack of centralism was the problem. The German delegation had a quite different position in that they argued they agreed ‘in theory' to democratic centralism but opposed it in Revolution because they believed it would strengthen, what they called, the “L5I Secret Faction' within Revolution.

The arguments of the German Revolution section in the run up to the international conference were essentially apolitical, raising a series of supposed dictates (in effect they had only a few contested examples) of the L5I, although some attempt was made to make reference to historical documents dealing with the youth-party relationship.

We believed that Revolution was stronger to fight alongside and in solidarity with the League because we recognised that the latter plays a unique role on the international left, since they have sought to re-elaborate (rather than revise) the Trotskyist programme and since they call as we do for a Fifth International.

Of course there were League members present at the conference because the League has a history of founding then supporting Revolution, but we were at pains to repeatedly point out that they were elected by Revolution groups in which the League was a minority.

The other major issue that the conference debated was the approach we had to building Revolution. We argued against what we believe, and still believe, was a passive propagandist conception put forward by the German Revolution group, that stressed only meetings on political theory and professional publications rather than a rigorous campaigning orientation.

One of the main arguments for an authoritative leadership was that such a leadership should seek to generalise the successes in the work of some sections to the advantage of Revo groups that have faced problems in their outward orientated work.

The German section delegation resisted this because they want to shield themselves from what was constructive and comradely criticism by raising accusations of ‘bureaucratism'. Furthermore, their opposition to democratic centralism is naturally compatible with a propagandist approach to building Revolution: without action who needs unity?

Why Australian Revolution is no longer part of our organisation

The intervention from the Australian delegate, a member of the Permanent Revolution group, was following their plan to create “mayhem” in Revolution, and attack the influence of the L5I in the ranks of Revolution. This was revealed in the leaked emails that led to the split in the League.

“The question is, does attending the congress help or hinder the launch of a new organisation. I think it will hinder it and I think we should carry out the pre-emptive split in the two weeks following the WPB NC in the way I suggested in my earlier post, possibly delaying its final announcement until we have caused mayhem in the ranks of Revo along the lines suggested by Michelle.” (Mark H, ‘Re: Congress Tactics, June 24th 2006)

When this was raised at the conference Michelle did not even try and deny this plan – how could she given the evidence?

The leaked emails also revealed that there was effectively no section of Australian Revolution beyond a front organisation for the Permanent Revolution group, and no intention to build the organisation. In an email with secret minutes (never circulated to the rest of the L5I at the time) of the former Workers Power Australia aggregate they agreed to:

“Pull back from Revo for the moment, except where needed internationally. We only have one non-WP member of Revo and hope to recruit them in coming months.” (Lisa F, ‘WPA Aggregate/Faction Meeting', 27th June 2006)

When this was raised by League members at the delegate conference Michelle on the one hand said this aggregate faction minutes were inaccurate, she was not aware of them or did not support them, while at the same time she argued that this decision represented an intention to give independence to Revolution Australia!

This inconsistency demonstrated clearly to all that she was lying. The League leadership had been passed all the emails from the international faction e-group, and nowhere had Michelle contested the aggregate minutes that appeared comprehensive.

Michelle's intervention into the conference continued in this dishonest way. Their whole intervention was characterised by trying to keep an unprincipled alliance with the opposition in German Revolution and their supporters in the Czech Revo group.

The only initial attempt to raise the debate to the level of politics was done in an alternative perspective draft sent out before the conference. In this document, the Australian delegate dismissed the potential of the ongoing class struggle describing the limits of struggle not in terms of a critic of the existing leadership but as inevitable consequence of a period of transition.

The growth of capitalism in China is presented as merely stabilising for the world system rather than contradictory. Then, incredibly, the uprising against the CPE in France that shook the French government was dismissed as ‘an anticlimax', presumably meaning the struggle was doomed from the start, had no potential nor go any further in this period with a complete lack of understanding how Marxists fight against such obstacles to take the struggle further.

Not content with this, the very possibility of the social forum movement organising effective resistance neo-liberalism is rejected out of hand. We are told cheerily that ‘this ship I'm afraid has sailed – and sunk'.

The Permanent Revolution group had previously been expelled from the League for planning to split it prior to its upcoming Congress and had developed this absurd perspective to justify passivity and reluctance to take on new tasks.

Michelle, the Australian Revolution delegate and a member of Permanent Revolution, did not even push this political argument with any force, choosing instead to limit her interventions to criticising the ‘tone of the debate' and defending the positions of the German delegation.

This was deeply opportunistic because if the Permanent Revolution group still agree with the League's party building thesis then they would argue for solidarity with a revolutionary cadre organisation. From their point of view this would surely mean the Permanent Revolution Group, but they did not even broach this question, presumably for fear of alienating potential support. It shows they are already departing some distance from the ‘say what is' tradition of Workers Power and the League.

We believed that Revolution Australia was a fraudulent group: a front organisation for a group committed to dishonest and destructive political practice, who had no interest in building Revolution. We were not at all attacking it for being a small group, as one of the German delegates claimed, but because of this.

We therefore passed a motion outlining that Revolution Australia would no longer be considered part of our international organisation and would be afforded no rights or responsibilities. We made clear that, should they continue to support our programme, they may become sympathisers and would be welcomed back into the organisation if they showed in practice a desire to build it on its internationally agreed lines.

Unfortunately, following the vote in favour of this motion, the delegate from Australian, one of the Czech delegates and the three delegates from Germany walked out of the conference in protest, saying that they did not recognise its decision.

About an hour later, telephone calls were made to the Czech and German delegates encouraging them to return to the conference and continue the political debates. However, they refused to do so.

In the conference discussion that followed it was agreed that we would produce this document over the lunch break and that the whole conference would then discuss, amend and pass it.

Our message to the Czech and three German delegates that walked out is simple: we urge you to come back into our organisation, respect its international democratic structures and fight for our commonly agreed goals. We believe that you have been manipulated by an organisation that had set itself the task of creating a split at this conference.

We believe that the upcoming camp organised by Czech and German Revolution should host an assembly where these issues can be discussed. We ask you to make your intentions clear to the international leadership before this. The delegate conference will send comrades to speak at this assembly to argue the case of the majority and urge the German and those of the Czechs who support their delegates' actions to come back into our international organisation.