WE ADHERE TO, AND PARTICIPATE IN THE HISTORIC PROJECT TO BUILD THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL FOR SOCIALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY
DECLARATION OF THE POSADIST IV INTERNATIONAL
12.12.2014
The Posadist movement salutes with great emotion and joy the proposal to lay down bases for the Fifth International.
This proposal was officially presented by Hugo Chavez at the First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV[1] in Caracas, Venezuela. It was accepted by the Congress and published by the PSUV on 21.11.09 under the name of The Caracas Commitment.
Hugo Chavez had originally raised the idea of a V International in 2007 and sought to convene a tentative meeting of world Left-wing parties in 2008. That meeting eventually took place from 19-21 Nov 2009 with the participation of 55 world Left-wing parties[2]. The Caracas Commitment did not emanate from it, but from the PSUV’s congress itself.
These audacious steps give an idea of the state of consciousness being reached in humanity as a whole. Collapsing capitalism mires the world into climate catastrophe and the destruction of the natural and human resources.
Capitalism has no ability to act differently, and with their resistance, the world masses stands up to its for-ever-more sophisticated wars. For it is global war that capitalism wages, against all the peoples of the world, in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It cannot stand the least sign of economic or social progress being made in the Workers States, but these continue to exist. They continue to exist, in Russia, China, Vietnam, N Korea, Cuba. Capitalism cannot stand the least sign of progress being made by the masses in its heartlands either, in the United States, Europe, Japan, and all the capitalist centres.
From “the fall of the Berlin wall”, the prophets of capitalism proclaimed “the end of history” – meaning ‘the end of Communism’. Many Left-wing movements went along with this view on seeing the Soviet Union fall, the Warsaw Pact being dismantled and world revolutionary centres adopting forms of capitalism. This happened in Russia, China, Vietnam, and all the Workers States of Eastern Europe.
But the Permanent Revolution continued, finding places where to progress and develop. The epicentre of world revolution is now in Latin America. It is based on Cuba’s firm defence of its Workers State and on an outpouring of Revolutionary States like those of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. This has led to the creation of Alba[3] and similar tools of Latin American unification. These are transforming the American continent, as Revolutionary Nationalism heaves towards Socialism.
It is urgent to unify the world against the preparations of North American and world imperialism for global war. The latter wishes war against Latin America[4]. In Europe, it has already started by destroying Yugoslavia. It is now continually at war against Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan etc., and it foments new wars in Eastern Europe, in the ex-USSR, in Asia, Africa. With 28 capitalist countries in coalition, NATO usurps [appropriates] the denomination of “international community” to make itself accepted as the world police force tasked with the defence and survival of the capitalist regime. It was for this purpose that it turned itself into an international military instrument.
Hugo Chavez’ proposal to found the V International responds to the superior necessity of a World United Front against imperialism. Such a World Anti-imperialist United Front already exists, although it needs to make a world political unification for the socialist transformation of society. Humanity is highly conscious that there is no “other world possible” in capitalism. This maturity is expressed in thousands of ways in the World Social Forums and in all the great international mobilisations.
A very long time ago, comrade J Posadas said that “humanity is apt for Communism” – and the first words of Leon Trotsky at the start of the Programme for the Foundation of the IV International are: “The crisis of humanity is the crisis of its leadership”. Behind the proposal to create a V International, there is a mighty craving to surmount this crisis of world revolutionary leadership.
From the First International to the Fourth International, the most elevated experiences of history were made. Today, the preoccupation to weave these experiences into the theoretical and political force of a V International is very important. What is significant about these experiences is not that they came from Europe but that each of them, when they were made, challenged the capitalist centres and proposed a universal and socialist solution.
Today, the same necessity has returned – and in conditions of a highly raised human consciousness. For now, the epicentre of revolution is in Latin America; but one must not forget that Venezuela cannot exist without Cuba, and that Cuba cannot exist without the Soviet Union. This means that the Soviet Union is still living on. It is not just living on in the memory of the masses of the ex-USSR, or in the consciousness of the world working class for whom the USSR has been the most elevated representative. The Soviet Union simply lives on today, and in today’s Russia.
The Soviet Union has not been a model – it has been a programme. What collapsed in the 1990’s is the Soviet bureaucracy. This triggered a regression towards capitalism, but partial, because what carries on living is the historic function of the Workers State. The latter carries on living because it is the necessary engine of progress on the road to Socialism. And because Socialism cannot be but worldwide. What goes on living is the experience of the USSR’s Soviet functioning in the first years of the Revolution, the necessity for organs of popular power, Soviets, Communes, Popular Militias, Socialist Democracy and the Revolutionary Party; the Revolutionary Party that holds tightly to the world socialist perspective.
The new International of today must have the goal of integrating the whole of humanity. The masses of the world prove that they can “pass from the tribe to Socialism”[5]. They stand up against ignorance and the injunctions of religious leaders. It is no longer necessary to have Marxist credentials to aspire to Socialism today, or fight for it. On all the continents, large masses break loose from the yoke of oppression and backwardness. They know perfectly that capitalism is in the way. They amount to an immense and varied world force ready to breathe life and potency into a new International.
The aim of the V International is ‘Socialism of the XXI Century’. Time has come to unite and offer to it programme and forms of organisation. This initiative from Caracas is an extraordinary opportunity to discuss the revolutionary experiences of history, and draw on the best of them.
The Posadist movement considers itself an integral part of the historic project of building the Fifth International.
We adhere to this project.
We wish to contribute to it with ideas, as well as with the political forces that we are developing on various continents, and in the many movements that struggle for the socialist transformation of the world.
The Posadist IV International, 12.12.2014
Note: It should be recorded that, at the end of 2009, the Venezuela leadership sought to synchronise the International Encounter of the Left Parties in Caracas and the Memorial activities dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky. The grandson of Trotsky V. Voltov, director of Trotsky’s Museum in Mexico, was invited to Caracas where he took part in, and spoke at PSUV functions.
[1] PSUV – United Socialist Party of Venezuela. At this First Extraordinary Congress, there came 772 delegates elected from local assemblies and representing one million persons involved nationally.
[2] At this three-days meeting of Left-wing parties ((19-20-21 Nov 2009), called “International Encounter of Left Parties”, delegates from some 30 countries took part. Die Linke of Germany was present along with the Left Block from Portugal, the PartiDeGauche from France, the FSLN from Nicaragua, the Movement for Socialism Marxist Tendency from Bolivia, the PSUV of course, Patricia Rodas as Foreign Minister of Honduras, the PT from Brazil, the FMLN from El Salvador (Frente Farabundo Marti), Pais Alliance from Ecuador, Proposal for an Alternative Society from Chile, New Nation Alliance from Guatemala, Socialist Alliance from Australia, and others. Not all these organisations were favourable to the setting up of an International. The Cuban Communist Party was favourable, but other Communist parties were not. Later, Hugo Chavez reproved the organisers for not having invited friendly intellectual figures from the United States. The date for the first official meeting of the V International was fixed for April 2010, but did not take place.
[3] Alba: Alliance of Latin American States
[4] At the time of this First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV, a coup had brought down the progressive government in Honduras. Shortly after that coup, Colombia granted 7 new military bases to the US. This stimulated the Latin American and Caribbean States to draw closer to China and Russia.
[5] Quote from J Posadas when he referred to countries like Afghanistan or Ethiopia.
