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    On the necessity for a new International
    On the necessity for a new International
    On the necessity for a new International
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    On the necessity for a new International

    By J. Posadas

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    As Lenin developed in his book Imperialism, Highest Stage of Capitalism, the capitalist system cannot survive without destruction and war. This is what it does through its fierce inter-capitalist competition and its antagonistic struggle toward the Workers States and the Revolutionary States. The Revolutionary State is a transition to socialism. Its State still operates in a capitalist setting, but already incorporates measures of social transformation within itself.When the partial disintegration of the Soviet Union happened in 1992, the conservatives of the world proclaimed the failure of the socialist project and “the end of history”. A pessimism dawned on large layers of the communist movement because, in not having correctly identified the roots of this retreat, they concluded wrongly on a failure of socialism.What this partial disintegration of the USSR has revealed, is the imperative need for humanity to avail itself of a world revolutionary leadership. This requirement is caused by the need of the Workers State’s form to spread all over the world. For the Workers State can no longer reach out to socialism without defeating the world capitalist system.To defeat the world capitalist system, the construction of a new International is absolutely essential – a new International that incorporates the experience of the Soviet Union and that of all the subsequent socialist revolutions.The world capitalist system is in a crucial phase of its agony. In all the parts of the world, the populations question deeply and challenge the legitimacy of its regime.A reanimation has taken place in the world and in the Workers States where socialism continues to be invoked. Revolutionary forces spring up from within bourgeois sectors that used to be the servants of capitalist power in the past, as in the army of Venezuela. The fact that these speak in support of socialism led Hugo Chavez to say: “The Bolivarian revolution is peaceful, but it is armed. It is a socialist revolution.”Generally and in Latin America in particular, the political wind blows against the US and EU2 imperialism – these two being now united through NATO. The war in Ukraine raises new questions because it is not a war between two countries. It represents an elevation in the process that leads inevitably to the global confrontation between the antagonistic social systems. And it is imperialism that designates Russia & China “the enemy” to eliminate. This is openly stated in the NATO’s “New Strategic Concept”.In this process, the world proletariat and the revolutionary movements do not have the instrument needed to get organized. Even for the important debates that are now being held in the world communist, socialist and revolutionary movements, an International Party of the masses is required.With the participation of more than 200 parties and organizations from all over the world, the Chinese Communist Party convened a World Forum of organizations on the theme of Marxism today (Nov 2017). In Cuba, the convocation of meetings between world Marxist theoretical journals regardless of parties has the same sense. Between the different communist parties of the world, the growing polemics reflect this aspiration to unification on a one hand; and on the other, they reflect their fear to confront with a common program and a socialist perspective, the third world war that capitalism prepares.It is to contribute to this great debate that we publish here a selection of texts by J. Posadas3 on the need to build a new mass International in the world, with a program of social transformation.We have deemed it important to publish here Hugo Chavez’ “Call for the Fifth International ". We reproduce it as transcribed in Spanish and translated by ourselves from the video of his address to the PSUV Congress in November 2009.Should it be called Fifth International or something else, what remains of supreme actuality is the need for an International.International Scientific Cultural &a

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPosadas
    Release dateJan 21, 2024
    ISBN9780907694090
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      Book preview

      On the necessity for a new International - J. Posadas

      ON THE NEED FOR A NEW INTERNATIONAL – SECTION 1

      HUGO CHAVEZ’S CALL TO FOUND THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL

      Intervention by

      Hugo Chavez, Caracas, 20.11.2009

      In 1864 Karl Marx founded the 1st International. In his Manifesto, he said "the emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves". Led primarily by Marx and Bakunin, that International emerged from the context and conditions then in existence, especially in Europe: A movement coming out of the industrial revolution and very strong labour organizations.

      Twenty-five years later, Engels founded the Second International, for the socialist and labour parties of Europe especially. When these faced the crisis of the First World War⁵, the International emerged divided and almost crushed. The internationalist outlook was broken as the member parties each supported their own government in the war. A division arose between the true internationalist proletarians and the others who had been no such thing. These latter allowed themselves to be carried away, possibly by other situations, conditions, oppressions.

      Then came the Third International that Lenin convened. He founded it in 1919, mostly from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union but incorporating almost all the communist parties. What came next was a process heavily determined by the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party.

      This generated quite a few contradictions on our continent. Che Guevara was one to speak out, quite early on – but not so early since it was 1960. The Soviet path had already forked, and as we can see 40 years later, it was never put right.

      Figures of importance had appeared in that Third International however; names, leaders and intellectuals of calibre, like Gramsci, Clara Zetkin, Carlos Mariátegui (see note 6), Rosa Luxemburg.

      Then there came Trotsky. The Fourth International that he founded in 1938 did not become a structured movement, and Trotsky died.

      145 years have passed since the First International was convened; 120 years passed since Engels convened the Second International, 90 years since Lenin convened the Third International and 71 years since Trotsky convened the IV International.

      I believe that the time has come for us to convene the Fifth International. I dare summon it! The Fifth International!

      I believe this task is of supreme urgency, and a responsibility, seeing how the world crisis keeps on accelerating. There is a memorable and appropriate phrase used by Simon Bolívar when he called for unity between the South American governments not long after their independence from Spain⁶: « We must unite because the world speeds everything up, and if we don’t accelerate our own unity, that world will come after us ». Perfectly true this, we know, even if with nuances. That's how nature works; it's full of nuances, it's natural.

      We have no manual or guidebook. We don’t do guidebooks like the Soviet Union did, to get everyone in line – no. I believe this did a lot of damage to the international, revolutionary, socialist movement. They started forcing the ideas to suit realities produced by wrong decisions. Although we recognize the great contribution that the Soviet Union made to revolutionary Cuba and to many other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. You have to admit it. The Soviet Union has not been a disgrace. The disgrace has been the Yankee empire.

      Let a Fifth International step forward in earnest. We cannot leave this in the hands of a bunch of governments. Those with government roles, see how they natter. No! We have to take this to the popular bases. Nothing better than the parties, the true parties of the left, to reach the popular bases and incorporate all the peoples: the women workers, the men workers, the peasant women and the peasant men, the women, the youth, the students, the military, the intellectuals – all the men and the women into this process.

      You have nothing without the peoples. They are the engine of history. We speak of the parties of the left, but it must be of the true left. This is what we mean. Today, a party of the left must have very clear views about what happens in the world.

      This is how socialism failed, the so-called real socialism, the Soviet one as much as of the European one. The social democratic theses failed also, the welfare state, the third way, all that failed. Something new must be built to stop churning out what already exists but is useless to the task facing us: Confront imperialism and propose socialism as the alternative to change the world.

      Let us reclaim our experience of the past, from 1864, from all that solid accumulation, all this heritage bequeathed to humanity. We must feed upon it for sustenance today because it is a new socialism that we are talking about. We always said that to create something new, one must use the accumulated knowledge as base. Since nothing comes out of nothingness, we tie our thoughts to our roots – Indo-American in our case. This is how Mariátegui⁷ viewed the liberating heroes like Simon Bolívar, San Martín, José Martí: Uniting the experiences, the thoughts of Morazan, Sandino and Farabundo with the emancipating Christianity of Camilo Torres, the great Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Manuela Sáenz, Eloy Alfaro, and the martyrs like Maurice Bishop, Gaitán⁸.

      That’s it. It’s like reactivating of all the volcanoes. Permit me the simile, for we are in the hour of the volcanoes; the hour of the kilns, not the hour of the frosts. José Martí⁹ said: This is the time of the kilns. We lit all the kilns; we reactivate all the volcanoes.

      Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias¹⁰ – 20 November 2009

      THE CREATION OF THE POSADIST IV INTERNATIONAL AND ITS FUNCTION IN HISTORY, SECTION 2

      THE IV INTERNATIONAL UP UNTIL TROTSKY’S DEATH AND THE TEST OF WW2

      J POSADAS

      Chapter 1

      In a compilation of texts from 1962 to 1977

      It was 1933 when Trotsky posed, for the first time, the need not to expect any positive change in the Communist International. For the first time, he advanced the idea to pass from the Left Opposition¹¹ to a new International. He pointed to Stalin and the Third International’s refusal to use the experiences of history and the favourable conditions to go and help power to be taken in Germany. Stalin was opposed to the USSR coming out of isolation for the sake of economic, political or social support in the world. Having transformed the Third International into an instrument for himself, there was no turning it back; it was perverted.

      Up until that time, Trotsky had tried to change the Communist International from within – to regenerate it. Stalin's policy that had allowed Hitler’s victory (1933), convinced Trotsky that no regeneration of the Communist International could now be expected. One had to work towards the formation of a new International. The historic conditions were shoring up Stalin's power. His power had not augmented in political or economic terms, but it gained from the policy of keeping the Workers State isolated. This allowed him to justify not looking beyond the Soviet Union. He had turned the Communist International and the Bolshevik Party into instruments to support the bureaucracy. He had perverted the use of Marxism which had always rested on the principle of the expansion of the world revolution.

      Trotsky posed the need for a new International for the first time in 1933 – and he took more decided steps in 1934. Because National Socialism (Nazism) had come to power in 1934, Trotsky said the following to the Third International and to Stalin: "There is still time, Hitler has triumphed but he has not consolidated. The masses resist him. It is still possible to defeat him. Let us make a front¹² with the Socialists in

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