ic no. 4 int'l edit

8/8/2019 IC No. 4 Int'l Edit

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In te rna t iona lCorrespondence MonthlyPolitical

Journal of theFourthInternational

No. 4 November 2010 2 euros / US$3Supplement to La Vrit/The Truth No. 69

UNITED STATESIn the Aftermath of the

Nov. 2 Elections -Declaration of

Socialist Organizer

BRAZILCommuniqu of the O

Trabalho Current ofthe Workers Party

(PT)

AFGHANISTAN10 Years of a War

That Is NowSpreading to

Pakistan

FRANCE: LESSONS OF TEN MONTHS OFINTENSECLASS STRUGGLE (dossier pp. 7-10)

CURRENT AFFAIRS pp. 4-5CURRENT AFFAIRS pp. 2-3 CURRENT AFFAIRS p. 6


2/162 Issue No. 4 November 2010 INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS United States : In the aftermath

of the midterm elections Page 3

Brazil : Declaration of the OTrabalho current of theWorkers Party (PT) after thesecond round of the presiden-tial election Pages 4 and 5

Afghanistan : Ten years of a war that has now spread toPakistan Page 6

France Dossier : The lessons of ten months of intense classstruggle Pages 7-10

Peru : The struggle for a labor and anti-imperialist candidatefor president Page 11

International Press Review Pages 12 and 13

Trotskyism and the LeftOpposition in the RussianCommunist Party (Bolshevik)in 1923-24, A book byRussian Historian AlexandreReznik Pages 14 and 15

Palestine : Resumption of directnegotiations on the basis of the two state solution Page 16

International Correspondence , the

monthly supplement to La Vrit-TheTruth , the theoretical magazine of the

Fourth International, is published under the responsibility of the International

Secretariat of the Fourth International.The director of the publication is

Daniel Gluckstein.Editorial Board, Business Department

and Correspondence:(for all countries and for the English,

Spanish and French editions)87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis,

75010, Paris, France.Tel. 011-331-4801-8828.Fax: 011-331-4801-8836

In te rna t iona l

Cor respondence

UNITED STATES :

November 2: Massive Abstention andRejection of Democrats for Refusal toAddress the Needs of the Millions WhoVoted for ObamaStatement by Socialist Organizer (excerpts)

On November 2, the Democratic Partycandidates got a shellacking the likes of which have not been seen in over 60 years:Republicans picked up at least 60 new seatsin the House of Representatives and sixseats in the Senate. In addition, theRepublicans won 10 governorships and

gained control of 19 state legislative cham-bers.In November 2008, close to 64 million

people voted for Barack Obama seeking realchange; they wanted an end to the Bushadministrations war on working people athome and an end to the wasteful and unend-ing wars abroad. For many especially formillions of Black people it was the firsttime they voted, as they finally saw anavenue for possible change.

In November 2010, after two years duringwhich the Democrats controlled the WhiteHouse and held a super-majority in the

Congress, 29 million Obama voters thatis, nearly one in every two people whovoted for Obama in 2008 stayed home.

Black voters plummeted by more than60% compared to 2008, while the youthvote (ages 18 to 29) dropped by more thanhalf, according to exit polls.

The real story in this election was themassive abstention from the polls by formerDemocratic supporters an abstention thatexpressed the widespread repudiation of twoyears of Democratic Party failure to create a

jobs program and outright betrayal of thepromises made during the campaign trail in2008 (no Employee Free Choice Act, noimmigration reform, no halt to foreclosuresand evictions, no end to the military buildupin the Middle East).

The administrations bailing out of WallStreet and bankers to the tune of more than$4 trillion, while allowing working men andwomen on Main Street to fend for them-selves, fueled the voters deep anger .

Patricia Elizondo, president of the 2,000-member Milwaukee InternationalAssociation of Machinists local, told the

New York Times before the election, Peoplehave been unemployed for two years, andtheyre unhappy that the health-care bill wasnot as good as they expected. Two yearsago, I had many members going door-to-door to campaign. Now theyre saying,Why should I? We supported that candi-

date, but he didnt follow through. (Sept.17, 2010)The same New York Times article quoted

Mike DeGasperis, a steelworker fromMartins Ferry, Ohio who voted for Obamain 2008 but who on the eve of the 2010 elec-tion in 2010 was still undecided. We heardeverything was going to change, but therehasnt been much change, and the unem-ployment is still bad and the area we live inis still really depressed, said DeGasperis,who was laid off for 10 months in 2009.

Democrats Join Republican Chorus

The massive rejection of the DemocraticParty candidates should come as no surprise:Since Obama took office, more than 3.3 mil-lion jobs have been lost. The number of unemployed and heavily underemployed isnow hovering around 27 million people. Butthis is not all. Six million families have losttheir homes to foreclosures during this cur-rent crisis, and an additional 2.5 millionhomes are in the process of foreclosure.

On every front, the Democrats have pur-sued basically the same corporate policies asGeorge W. Bush. Working people know this having experienced the brunt of theseattacks directly which is why they votedwith their feet on November 2.

In the aftermath of the election, Obamaannounced that he wants to work closelywith the Republicans to enact much-neededreforms in our Social Security system andto negotiate with Republicans over taxcuts, energy and education reform policies.In real-world politics this will mean anintensified drive to privatize public educa-tion.


3/16Issue No. 4 November 2010 INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE 3

A November 3 statement by theDemocratic Leadership Council, theClinton-Gore wing of the DemocraticParty, sounded a similar note, hailing thepossibility that the free trade agenda topush U.S. exports worldwide would begiven a new boost by the mid-term elec-tions.

Democrats and Republicans will joinhands in cutting the budget deficit andmaking workers shoulder even more of the burden of the deepening economic

crisis.And to carry out these attacks, the

bosses and the politicians of the two cor-porate parties will need to co-opt thetrade unions into implementing theseanti-worker plans.

On November 3, Jerry Brown, thenewly elected governor of California,argued that the states $19 billion budgetdeficit required establishing a new part-nership where labor, the business com-munity, and the elected officials couldcome together and agree on how to closethe deficit gap. Brown made it clear thathe opposed raising taxes so the mes-sage was unambiguous: The labor move-ment needs to be part of the process of laying off public-sector workers anddownsizing government.

Trumka on the November 2Elections

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumkanoted correctly in a November 3 state-ment to the National Journals The Day

After conference that, Republicanswould be making a big mistake if theybelieve voters endorsed the Republicanagenda. Trumka insisted that the voteswere a rebuke to the party in power.

Trumka went on, however, to arguethat the Democrats continue to belabors friends. But the record proves

just the opposite, confirming what we inSocialist Organizer have been statingtime and again: The Democratic Party isone of the two parties of the ruling class;

it defends faithfully the interests of thebankers and the corporations.Trumka concluded his presentation by

saying that he will tell Obama andDemocrats to work with Republicans, butnot to compromise their principles.

But everyone knows that workingwith the Republicans means going afterentitlements, privatizing education andother public services, refusing to increasetaxes or reduce military spending and,most important, refusing to create jobs.

What Concerns the Democrats

The Democrats arent concerned aboutcompromising their principles. As aparty of the bosses, they have stuck totheir principles, which are contrary to theinterests of the working class and all theoppressed. For two years they have doneall the bidding of Wall Street and the cor-porations against the U.S. working classand the poor and now, with the newmandate of November 2, they will onlysharpen these attacks.

And here we must be clear: TheDemocrats could not have carried outany of these attacks without the tradeunion leaderships unflinching support tothe Democratic Party. The union leader-ships continued subordination to theDemocratic Party, in fact, remains THE

central political obstacle facing U.S.working people today.This is why, more than ever, the main

task facing unionists, young activists, andcommunity organizers is to build a fight-back in the interests of the working-classmajority within the unions and work-places, in the community, and inside theschools and campuses. In this process of building grassroots resistance to theattacks raining down on us, we mustfight for the unions and the organizationsof Blacks and Latinos to act independent-ly and to throw their tremendous political

weight into this historic struggle aroundone or more of the following urgentdemands:

- Implement a massive publicworks program to put 20 mil-lion people back to work!

- Hands off Social Securityand Medicare!

- Stop and reverse the drive toprivatize public education andsocial services!

- End the wars in Afghanistanand Iraq and redirect the warfunding to meeting humanneeds!

- Tax the rich! Make the boss-es and Wall Street pay!

- Get the bailout money backfrom Wall Street!

- Employee Free Choice Act,with card-check!

- Stop the Deportations!

Papers for All!- Single-payer healthcare!Another central task of the moment

which is not dissociated from the fight toorganize an emergency workers fight-back is to open the widest discussionin the labor movement about the need tobuild a Labor Party based on the tradeunions, a party that fights for thedemands and the needs of working peo-ple, a party that takes on the corporatepowers rather than working for them.

Barack Obama addresses Pennsylvania AFL-CIO convention in April 2008.



Dilma, the candidate of the WorkersParty, won! What problems are raised?

Working people elected the candidate of the Workers Party, Dilma Roussef, to thepresidency of the Republic. Fifty-six mil-lion voters, concentrated in the workersneighborhoods, the poor communities, andthe favelas voted, for the third time, for thecandidate of the workers party to the presi-dency; they did it clearly for jobs and bet-

ter wages, for the land, health, education,housing and transportation!They have affirmed the will to bury,

once and for all, the politics of Serra(PSDB), the preferred candidate of impe-rialism, and all those who would privatizethe Pre-Sal (oil reserves in deep water), thespeculators, the land owners, and the lordsof the media.

Here are 56 million voters who were notintimidated by the brutal offensive of can-didate Serra proposing national unity toimplement the fiscal readjustmentsdemanded by the IMF, supported by inter-national financial capital, the U.S. StateDepartment, the leadership of severalchurches, and by the Pope himself.

Working people brought the WorkersParty to the presidency again, demandingimmediate satisfaction of their demands.These demands can only be met by re-tak-ing control of the national wealth all thePetrobras oil re-nationalized 100%; byrepealing the laws imposed by the IMFduring the Fernando Henrique Cardosoperiod (such as the law on fiscal responsi-bility, the law on social organizations, andthe primary fiscal surplus to pay the debt);finally, by breaking from the subordinationto international financial capital, to re-establish national sovereignty.

Working people gave a victory to theWorkers Party candidate, not some sectorof the elites such as Sarneys PMDB, thePDBS of Cid Gomes or others who nowdemand loudly to control more cabinets, toprevent the satisfying of the peoplesdemands. All this was made even moreobvious between the first and secondrounds.

First, the leadership of the Workers Partygave up a number of candidacies for gover-

nor to those allies who in fact wereoften defeated.

Then, in the second round, while theleaders of the Workers Party and theirtrusty relays were running after allies most whom remained apathetic, thusrevealing the real interests of the PMDB it was the common people who went to thestreets in support of Dilma.

It is was those sectors that stopped the

reactionary offensive from the priest of the parrish of Caninde (Cerea) whodenounced Serras attempt to campaignduring his mass, or the workers of theprinting house of Cambuci (Sao Paulo)who denounced the printing of lying pam-phlets from the catholic hierarchy againstthe Workers Party, down to the MataMosquitos (employees of a public servicein charge of the fight against epidemics)who had been fired by Serra when he wasminister of Health, and rehired by Lula.

They prevented Serra from campaigning

in front of their union in Rio de Janeiro. Tothis, one must add the initiatives of lettersand meetings in support of the WorkersParty candidate, notably the protest calledby the UFP (the Federation of Petroleumworkers CUT), which gathered morethan 10,000 Petroleum workers for thedefense of Petrobras. Mobilized, those sec-tors, those unions and organizationsbrought their demands to the campaign.

Once elected president, Dilma talkedabout eradicating misery and reachingout to the opposition. Defeated, Serradeclared immediately: We are just at thebeginning of a true struggle. In fact, in theworld crisis, imperialism leaves no roomfor manoeuver, and tries to recover its posi-tions on the continent (Venezuela,Ecuador.) In Brazil, under the pretext of theexchange rate (the war of currencies),imperialism again demands budgets cuts,reform of Previdencia (social security andretirements), privatizations, that is: the fis-cal adjustments to guarantee its profits and

BRAZIL

After the Second Round of thePresidential ElectionDeclaration of the O Trabalho Current of the Workers Party (PT)

Dilma Roussef and Lula at election rally in Brazil



speculation. This is the opposite of whatthe people had voted for.

What meaning can we give to the repeat-ed declarations of the elected candidate onthe eradication of misery? Lula talkedabout it eight years ago, and repeated itfour years ago. But with so much popular

support, wasnt it possible, for instance, toproduce the agrarian reform which wouldhave ended misery in the countryside?Wasnt it possible to renationalize and torehire the unemployed people because of privatizations? Or adopt measures to eradi-cate drugs from poor areas, and preventthem from getting a hold? Yes, it was, andit is possible.

But for that, instead of pursuing the samepolitics, it is necessary to have a govern-ment of the Workers Party that breaks withthe laws inherited from Fernando HenriqueCardoso and the IMF. The people wouldsupport such a government enthusiastically.The president of the Workers Party, Dutra,said:the next government will not be agovernment of the Workers Party. But forus, we say: a true government of theWorkers Party is a must!

It is more than time to finally break withthe politics of the IMF, the G20 and theWorld Bank.

* An urgent question is: the increase of minimum wage; the readjustment of pen-sions for 2011, and the salary agreementsfor civil servants. In the absence of a clearanswer from the candidate under the pres-sure of the market, the CUT [union con-

federation] now has the responsibility tocall on Brasilia to demand what is right.

These are demands that the WorkersParty, with the largest elected parliamentarygroup, must support.

* Another current question, that of thecrisis of exchange rates: to raise the rates of FOI (taxes on financial operations) will notstop speculation fed by Washington, and

which rests on the high interest rates of theCentral Bank of Brazil. But there is a solu-tion

to protect the national production, andguarantee jobs: it is the centralization of exchange. Thus an actual domestic marketwould be built on the base of peoples ris-ing consumption.

Furthermore: the problem of the PEC(proposal of constitutional amendment) onthe 40 hours which is still blocked in con-gress by Temer, the vice-president of thePMDB; the end of the foresight factor (cal-culation allowing to lower the level of pen-sions in function of life expectancy.) Andthat of the actualization of the index of theland (which serves to determine whichparcels can or cannot be expropriated underthe agrarian reform.) It was refused by thePMDB agriculture minister. But whobelieves that those cabinet members andother allies will answer the demands of the people

And the demand of the troops returnfrom Haiti is an urgent one: the occupationadds to the tragedy and epidemics byrepressing the people and assassinatingunionists.

All these are urgent questions!

The course of events will depend on the

strength of workers organizations in thecities and the countryside, as was shown inthe conquests won by the metal workers,the petroleum workers, those of the sugarcane plantations (canavieros), and thenationwide strike of bank employees in themiddle of the electoral campaign.

It is in the service of that force that the OTrabalho Current joined integrally with itscandidates as early as the first ballot. Toregroup through and for the class struggle,that is our banner, and it was also one of the founding banners of the Workers Partyat its foundation.

In this new and decisive stage whichopens, we invite the comrades of theWorkers Party to tighten our solidarity,which will be more necessary than ever!We are going to bring all our forces to the3rd National meeting of Party Dialogue, inMarch, called by more than 30 elected can-

didates and parliamentarians, coming fromdiverse horizons, in response to the call:Vote Workers Party, for a true govern-ment for change, with allies, yes, but alliesbelonging to forces struggling for the peo-ples aspirations!

In view of all that happened, it is clearthat this meeting must rise to the height of the challenges of the new situation; to pre-pare for this, meetings are being held in allthe states.

That is what the O Trabalho Current pro-poses. Participate in our annual financialcampaign, which is the guarantee of ourpolitical independence!

Join us!

BRAZIL

Articles in Issue No. 69 of La Vrit/The Truth

Introduction ChronologyThe Testimony of Sieva (EstebanVolkov) Leon Trotsky, a Revolutionary at theHeart of the 1905 RussianRevolution, the Dress Rehearsal of the 1917 Revolution(by Dominique Ferre) Trotsky and the Beginning of theFight Against the Bureaucracy in theUSSR(by Christel Keiser) Trotsky and the Bolshevik Current(By Andreu Camps) Permanent Revolution and the Anti-Imperialist United Front

(by Joao Alfredo Luna) The Fourth International and thePeoples Fronts The Lessons of October (by Jean-Pierre Raffi) Resolution on the Attitude Towardthe Provisional Government Adoptedby the Seventh All-RussiaConference of the Bolshevik Party(April 25, 1917) Trotsky and the Defence of theUSSR(by Pavlusko Imsirovic) Trotsky and the Trade Unions(by Olivier Dorianei) Art, Society, Revolution: Principles

and Predictions(by Michel Serac) Leon Trotsky on the Labor Partyand Black Party in the US(by Andreu Camps) Trotsky and the TransitionalProgram(by Daniel Gluckstein) Founding of the FourthInternational:

An Historical Necessity(by Lucien Gauthier) Manifesto of the Fourth Internationalon Imperialist War and ProletarianRevolution: Emergency Conferenceof the Fourth International(by Jean-Jacques Marie)



By FRANCOIS FORGUE

On October 7, the war in Afghanistanentered its tenth year. This anniversaryhas been primarily marked by risingcasualties among the troops of thecoalition under U.S. leadership, as partof an escalation of the war wagedagainst the people. The increase introops of the occupation force adecision of Obama which now hasabout 150,000 soldiers force under theflag of NATO, has not resulted in theoccupations stabilization of any part of the country.

A few weeks ago, the InternationalInstitute for Strategic Studies (IISS), athin-tank including former top militaryheads from the U.S. and England,released a report stating that this war isa long-term disaster. It sees as theonly solution a partition of the countrybetween the Taliban still designatedas the enemy that must be destroyed andthe Karzai regime which they unani-mously see as full of abject corruption.

The Canadian newspaper the Toronto Sunon September 14, summarizing the report, inan article titled A bomb explodes London,adds: This report is a setback for Obamaand for David Cameron and other allies of the United States. It will only convinceskeptics that the real reason for the occupa-tion of Afghanistan is profits from oilresources, and the will to exclude Chinafrom these profits.

For several years the stalemate inAfghanistan has spilled over into Pakistan.Moreover, U.S. strategists, concerned bywhat has become a theater of military oper-ations, and ignoring the people and the sov-ereignty of states, have called the whole areaAfpak.

An American journalist has compared the

extension of the war in Afghanistan toPakistan territory to what happened duringthe Vietnam War when U.S. aircraftsengaged in terror bombings in Cambodia.There is something true in this comparisonbut it omits, what is without doubt the mostessential part, the consequences for all Asia particularly in the Indian subcontinent of the destabilization of Pakistan, which hasbeen dragged into the abyss of an endlesswar.

Cambodia was complementary to the warin Vietnam: Pakistan is a major component

in the situation across all the continent.Resulting from the counter-revolutionarypartition of 1947, the Pakistani state hasbeen primarily maintained as a major pointof leverage for U.S. imperialism. U.S. impe-rialism has always used the conflict betweenPakistan and India to develop its overallstrategy.

Today, the contradiction is that the needsof imperialism create a situation that under-mines the very foundations of the existenceof the Pakistani state, whose survival it stillfeels is indispensable.

We know that Pakistan has been victim of devastating floods this summer. The mediainterest has declined faster than the ebb of the waters. Note that the floods did not pre-vent the military operations of U.S. andNATO from intensifying. In September, atleast 20 attacks were carried out byunmanned drones on Pakistani territory. Atthe same time, as was revealed by Bob

Woodward in his new book, The Wars of Obama: A strong paramilitary force of 3,000 men, consisting of Afghan mercenar-ies led by CIA agents have conducted manyraids.

Pakistan is facing the full brunt of a warwhose causes are not even in Pakistan but inthe overall plans of imperialism. The Britishweekly newspaper The Economist reportedthat, where deadly attacks occurred in aregion controlled by the Taliban, the peoplesaid: This is not the Taliban, they are agentsof Government hoping to get a few dollars

in the name of the fight against terror-ism.

It is not only war that directly affectsthe people of Pakistan. Even as theyface the dire consequences of floods,they are also subjected to the interna-tional agencies of imperialism, theWorld Bank and IMF, whose presidentis none other than Dominique Strauss-Kahn who some present as the futurecandidate of the Left in the presiden-tial election in France.

This summer, Pakistan was supposedto receive $ 1.3 billion dollars, as one of the payments of a 11.3 billion loan that

had been negotiated with the IMF. Thelatter refused to loosen the strings on theloan because the Pakistani governmenthad not met certain conditions related tothis loan (privatization, removal of sub-sidies, etc). In the face of disaster strik-ing Pakistan, its representatives hopedthat the IMF would change its position.

It did not happen, and the IMF directorexplained that new loans would depend onthe implementation of its plan. The WorldBank is no exception. Its president, RobertB. Zoellick said: We provide a strongresponse to the crisis but we should not losesight of the indispensable economicreforms.

This is very much a plan to kill a wholepeople. In this situation, the most severeblows are brought upon the labor move-ment: non-implementation of labor laws andincreasing use of repression, at the behest of the bosses, to prevent the formation of unions.

The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation(APTUF) acts to centralize the resistance of the working class by linking the fate of workers to the resistance against the ravagesof war and the consequences of the imperi-alist plans.

It is not possible in limits of this article todiscuss the situation in other countries in theregion, especially India. No state will escapethe consequences of the seriousness of thecrisis reaching Pakistan. The forms in whichthe global crisis is expressed in the Indiansubcontinent put forward as a central issuethe consequences of the partition in 1947under new forms that need to be analyzed.One thing is certain: there will be no posi-tive way forward outside the common strug-gle of the peoples of India, Pakistan andBangladesh.

Ten Years of a War That Has Now Spread to PakistanThe Real Reasons for the Occupation of Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN



To analyze the lessons from 10 monthsof intense class struggle in Francerequires starting with an observation.

On the one hand, there was the processof integration of the trade unions into theimplementation of the counter-reform of the pensions, or retirement system. Thisintegration was from the outset a majorgoal of the government in the gover-nance framework dictated by theInternational Monetary Fund, the WorldBank, and the European Union. Thisintegration has not occurred. In fact, theworkers and youth through bigger andbigger mobilizations, through taking to

the streets by the millions on multipleoccasions, and through strikes soughtat all levels to take ownership of theirunions as instruments for struggle aroundthe slogan: Withdraw the PensionCounter-Reform!

On the other hand, the general strike toforce the withdrawal of the governmentsplan which appeared to be the onlyway forward for many workers and formany local and even dpartement-wideunion federations [tr. note: equivalent to

state union federations in the UnitedStates] has not occurred.

A slogan that united theworking class: withdraw

the counter-reform!

The combination of these two ele-ments captures the peculiarity of thismovement. In reality, the movementgrew very close to the general strike. Theessential feature of the situation was that,step by step, the workers grabbed onto aunifying slogan: withdrawal the counter-

reform!And that process took place in opposi-tion to all those who openly called for agood pension reform starting withthe leaders of the Socialist Party (PS), theCommunist Party (PCF), and the headsof the unions. However, the workers sawno reason to go down the slippery slopeof the allegedly necessary goodreform. The so-called pension deficitsresulted exclusively from the destructionof jobs, the plunder of public funds, the

measures taken against public utilities,etc. This has been repeatedly demonstrat-ed by the Independent Workers PartyPOI (see sidebar).

The slogan of withdrawal gainedstrength, step by step. Raised first byonly the Force Ouvriere confederation(see timeline), it quickly gained support-ers among whole sectors of the CGT [themost influential trade union confedera-tion]. In total, it is estimated that by theend of the process, a majority of depart-mental unions and federations of theCGT were calling for withdrawal of thecounter-reform.

But despite the proliferation of callsfor withdrawal from a majority of thefederations and a very large number of appeals from all unions in specificdepartments, the top leaders of the CGTconfederation remained inflexible. At notime did Bernard Thibault, the secretarygeneral of the CGT, advance the sloganof withdrawal. Worse, he continued hisalliance with Chereque of the CFDT [therightwing Christian trade union], espe-cially around the so-called demand for

D O S S I E R

FRANCE : Lessons of 10Months of Intense ClassStruggle (Dossier by Christel Keiser, Laurence Fayard, & Dominique Ferr)



opening negotiations for a goodreform.

From the law of August 20,2008 to the Inter-

Syndicale of the CGT-CFDT

This alliance is nothing trivial. Theagreement between the CGT and CFDTled to the signing in 2008 with the boss-es of what was called the common posi-tion, which served as the basis for thenew law on union representativity(August 20, 2008), disrupting all therules of trade unionism won in France forover 60 years. The trade union confeder-ations, which were previously recog-nized as representative, were now placedin a situation where they must, companyby company, sector by sector, give evi-dence of their representativity through

votes and staff consultations, which, infact, would encourage the emergence of so-called trade union leaders under thethumb of the bosses, to the detriment of the existence of the confederations.

This CGT-CFDT-government-employ-ers agreement was a major blow againstfreedom of association and was part of the governance advocated by all theinstitutions of international finance capi-tal.

This aspect of governance was usedagainst the push for a general strike dur-ing this recent working class upsurge.But it was not strong enough to preventthe movement from growing to the pointwhere it brought behind it most of theactivists and organizations of the CGT. Itwas not strong enough to prevent mil-lions of workers from going on strike anddemonstrating in huge mass demonstra-tions on seven different occasions,against the will of Thibault, Chrque,etc. pushing their unions to defend theirclass interests.

The working class has notwon but it is not defeated

This neo-corporatist alliance was notstrong enough, either, to prevent workersfrom striking, after October 12, in anextremely large number of sectors, and toattempt to overcome all the obstaclesplaced in their way by the union official-dom.

The situation thus created is new,unquestionably. The working class didnot win. Yet so far, the dominant feelingis not one of defeat. In contrast, the capi-

talist class and the government, whichwelcomed the passage of the counter-

reform, are far from declaring victory.The newspaper Les Echos , which rep-

FRANCE: CLASS STRUGGLE

Chronology of EventsJanuary 2010: Nicolas Sarkozy called

for the reform of the pensions before theend of 2010 and held a conference on the

deficit in which he announced that hemust find 100 billion euros by 2013.

February 15: Sarkozy meets unions andannounces the schedule for reform. Fiveunions, the CFDT, CGT, FSU, UNSA andpartners, call for day of action on March23 for a debate, which was alreadybeing organized by the government. Nodemands were raised. The Socialist Party(SP), the Communist Party (CP), the LeftParty (PG), and the New Anti-CapitalistParty (NPA) supported that call for anational debate in support of a goodreform.

Late March: The governmentannounces the filing of a bill by LabourMinister Eric Woerth.

April 7: Jean-Claude Mailly (ForceOuvriere-FO union confederation) calledon the other confederations to organize aninterprofessional strike of 24 hours to rollback the government. The proposal wasrejected by the leaders of the CGT andCFDT, among others.

May 4: The Extraordinary ExecutiveCommittee meeting of FO calls for aninterprofessional strike and a nationaldemonstration in Paris on June 15.

From June 7 to 11: The CFDT at its con-gress announces that it supports the centralpoint of the Woerth law (the lengthening

the contribution period before retirement).National leaders of the PS, PCF, LeftParty, and the NPA refuse to raise thedemand for the withdrawal of the gov-ernment project.

June 15: The government releases itsdraft legislation; 70,000 workers and tradeunionists demonstrate in Paris in responseto the call of the FO union confederationfor withdrawal. In the following days,many CGT and FO unions demand the fullwithdrawal of the bill.

June 24: New day of action called bythe Inter-Union CGT-CFDT. Though theleaders of these confederations stillrefused to demand withdrawal, this

demand was broadly reflected in the con-tingents, including from unions and mili-tants of the CGT.

June 29: Unions call for day of strikesand demonstrations on September 7, theopening day of debate in the NationalAssembly.

July and August: Hundreds of resolu-

tions were adopted by unions demandingthe withdrawal of the bill and calling onworkers to strike on September 7 to

demand the withdrawal of the counter-reform plan. From July 20 to 23, the bill isin committee in the National Assembly.Dismissing the demand for withdrawal,members of the PS, PCF and PG proposeamendments. The PS even declares thatpeople very well can work up to 60 or 65years.

September 7: Nearly three millionworkers are on strike and demonstratethroughout the country with their unions.Many marches call for the withdrawal.The very next day, Bernard Thibault(CGT) and Francois Chereque (CFDT)insist on rejecting the demand, raised frombelow within their unions, that they call aninterprofessional general strike until with-drawal of the bill.

September and October: Given thepower of the working class movement which is joined by the youth and highschool students the Inter-Union (Inter-Syndicale) is forced to call a new day of strikes and demonstrations on September23, and on October 2, 12, 16 and 19.Millions of French workers go on strikeand demonstrate. The demand for with-drawal is growing.

After October 12: The strike is extendedin various public and private sectors(SNCF rail system, territorial agents ...).The refinery workers decide to strike. Thetruck drivers join the movement through-out the country and organize the blockadeof fuel depots.

October 21: The Inter-Union (exceptFO and Solidaires), ignoring the demandfor a strike until withdrawal, called for anew day of action on Oct. 28, the day afterthe Senate vote on the project and said thatthey would ensure compliancewith/respect for property. The govern-ment violently requisition the strikers of fuel depots and unlock the refineries.Locally, leaders of the PS threaten to arrestthe garbage strikers.

In the aftermath of the strike on October28, Chrque (CFDT) and the president of MEDEF (employers) raise the prospect of the employment of young and elderlypeople in the context of implementationof the law. They benefited from the com-plicit silence of Thibault (CGT), whocalled for other forms of action.



resents the interests of the capitalistclass, writes:

The tearing up society, this test of democracy, left the nation as a gravelyinjured body [...]. On its ruins, the exec-utive branch will have to try to rebuild asocial dialogue. Not that it is an end in

itself but a means to reform TheFrench population feels every reform asa new blow [...]. The hegemonic idea iscertainly simplistic, but simple: the word reform actually means sacrifice[...]. Imagine, how it is possible toimpose still more sacrifices? We may not be distant from a moment when thosewho define themselves and perceivethemselves as permanent victims and they are not a minority will go all out in their response to these reforms.

Institutional Crisis & Popular

Front of the 21st centuryThe Sarkozy government and, more

generally, the institutions of the FifthRepublic were mortally wounded. Thatswhy the Left was quick to step into thebreach to try to save the decomposedregime. Throughout this conflict, theleaders of the PS and the PCF havealways had a duplicitous stance. Whilethey were dramatically present in thedemonstrations, pledging their supportfor the movement that sought the path of strike, they at the same time made manystatements advocating a good reformand the need to extend the age of retire-ment.

In this sense, they have only acted inaccordance with the undertaking begunby Lionel Jospin, then Socialist PrimeMinister in common with JacquesChirac, then president, at the BarcelonaSummit in 2002, where they pledged toextend the duration by five years for theage of retirement at the full rate.

The day after the passage of the law,the same leaders of the Socialist Partyand Communist Party launched majorcampaigns for 2012, the expected date of

the presidential election. They proposedto develop a program for the Left gov-ernment including a whole series of things ... except the repeal of the counter-reform. Worse, the same leaders multiplytheir statements that in 2013 there shouldbe a new reform, this time based on theintroduction of pension funds calledretirement points, a proposal made joint-ly by president of the employers,Laurence Parisot of MEDEF, and theleader of the CFDT, Francois Chereque.Thus, once again, we see verified the

treacherous role of those who want toimplement what they call a new popularfront of the 21st century. As noted bythe founding programme of the FourthInternational, such Popular Fronts,together with fascism, constitute the lastoptions for decadent imperialism againstthe revolution.

A situation that iscompletely open

The fact remains and it is the salienttrait of the situation that these 10months of class struggle have resulted ina situation that remains completely open.Not only did millions and millions of workers come into motion, but amongthem a large layer of tens of thousands of activists and unionists, at all levels, soughtto free themselves from the policiesimposed by the trade union and politicalmisleaders.

For the time being, it remains a search

only. It is not yet a conscious movement.But this was a search that led to manyagreements of unity in action between dif-ferent unions based on the demand of thewithdrawal of the counter-reform and theclearly formulated objective for an inter-professional general strike until the govern-ment was forced to withdraw its counter-reform plan.

These links have been forged. This van-guard is seeking to establish itself and towin an outcome consistent with the needs

of the working class this is a major fac-tor for the entire period ahead. It constitutesboth the first elements of a political instru-ment to help the working class open theway to winning battles at the same timeit constitutes the basis for the establishmentand strengthening of a genuine independentworkers party. It is in relation to theseprocesses that the French section of theFourth International, a participant in thebattle to build the Independent WorkersParty, organized its activities during thislast period.

D O S S I E R FRANCE: CLASS STRUGGLE

What They Said ...Report of the IMF (whose director is

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, also leader of the Socialist Party) on October 6:Raising the legal age of retirementshould be the starting point for reform.The report welcomes the reform proposedby the French government to raise thelegal age which is currently among thelowest of the world.

Marisol Touraine (member of theSocialist Party) in early September: Wemust extend the contribution period.Retirement should not apply equally toeveryone, because the world of work haschanged. We must maintain the legal ageof 60 years and at the same time recog-nize that people will work longer.

Gaetan Gorce, MP (PS): We fight notfor polemics or to reject reform, but to

show that this reform is not good; we donot demand withdrawal.

Jean-Marie Le Guen, MP PS . ParisOctober 22 (Le Parisien): If theSocialists win in 2012, I strongly doubtthat economic conditions will allow us torevert to 40 years. Martine Aubry wasclear: the longer contribution period isaccepted by all.

LHumanite (former central organ of the Communist Party), August 24: TheCommunist activists have raised tens of thousands of signatures for another reform .

Pierre Laurent (national secretary of the PCF) in early September: Our mem-

bers will defend these proposals for alter-native funding of pensions in the parlia-mentary debate.

The NPA [New Anti-Capitalist Party]raises the demand for withdrawal of thereform but calls for: A united campaignto be held [with the leaders of the PS andPCF], whatever political disagreementsthere may be. We can march separatelyand strike together in the battle of pen-sions [...] The outcome of 2012 is playedout in this battle.

Joint Communique of the Inter-Syndicale CFDT, CFE / CGC, CFTC,CGT, FSU, UNSA, Solidarity, August 23:The government and parliamentariansneed to hear protests by the workers andanswer their demands for more choices onpensions.

FO press release on August 23: Whena text is not right and when the govern-ment does not change the essential (from60-62 years and 65-67 years), we mustabandon this text.

Nadine Prigent, confederal secretaryof the CGT , August 26: We cannotintroduce the idea that winning the with-drawal of this project would be a victoryin the pensions issue.

Interview with Francois Chereque(CFDT), October 11: The Inter-Syndicaledoes not call for the withdrawal of thereform, for one simple reason: the citizensof our country know that a reform is need-ed.



FRANCE: CLASS STRUGGLE

Beginning on January 2010, theIndependent Workers Party (in which theFrench section of the Fourth International,the International Communist Current-CCI,is a current, began a campaign against con-sensus with the Sarkozy governmentaround the reform of pensions.

January 22, 23 and 24: During its secondnational congress, the POI appealed toworkers and young activists of all stripes:Stop! Hands off our pensions! [...] We callfor the rejection of consensus! We call forunity to say: do not touch our pensions!The POI decides to organize a series of mass meetings (over 20 were held through-

out France) to organize the mobilization of workers around this objective.On March 31, when this call had been

signed by over 20,000 people, the nationaloffice of the POI adopted an appealexpressing the mandate given by the work-ers, which noted: Nothing can justify anagreement to enter a debate around pen-sions. Nothing should be touched, not the60 year retirement age, not the level of replacement rate, or the duration of the con-tribution period: none of this is nego-tiable. Anyone who wants to stray fromthat mandate is turning their backs on thecommon demand of all workers. The POIproposed to workers, activists of all persua-sions, trade unionists, who speak outagainst the consensus to sign the appealand to establish committees for unity.

On April 24 in Paris, at the initiative of the POI, 70 activists of all persuasions, del-egates from the unity committees in 22departments, adopt a call that ends with theproposal to organize, respecting the diver-sity of viewpoints, across all of France asmany rallies, public meetings, political ral-lies as possible around the slogan: No con-sensus with the Sarkozy government!Hands off our pensions! initiated by thecommittees for unity.

In accordance with the traditions of thelabor movement in France (mutual inde-pendence of parties and unions), membersof the POI are involved in their unions inthe battle that saw hundreds of trade unionsbodies take a stand for the withdrawal of the counter-reform.

On June 19, after publication of the draftgovernment legislation, the national officeof the POI launched the slogan of with-drawal and initiated an open letter to lead-ers of the PS, PCF, and Parti de Gauche[Left Party], which for weeks had demand-ed a debate for another reform: Weve

had enough of statements about the desiredreforms, these counter-reforms! Enough of statements of intent for 2012! One word:Withdrawal of the Sarkozy / Fillon / Woerthbill on pensions. [...] Leaders of the PS,PCF and Left Party, this is an emergency:do not help the government pass its deadlylaw. Take a clear position, without any con-ditions, now for the immediate withdrawalof the government project.

The Federal National Council of the POImet on the October 2 and 3 and adopted adeclaration aimed at preparing a nationalconference of delegates for unity to stop thedestructive offensive of the government, for

the withdrawal of all the counter-reformsto be held on December 11, 2010. The POIhas no goal other than to advance the causeof unity to uphold the basic needs of work-ers, youth, and the vast majority of the peo-ple.

For it is obvious: by forcing the govern-ment to withdraw its pension law and todesist in the counter-reforms, the workingclass will open a path towards a politicalsolution in the interests of working peopleand democracy, the statement said.

[In the preparatory text for the 48thCongress of the French section of theFourth International (adopted on October30, 2010), the national leadership of theInternational Communist Current of thePOI returned to the significance of ourintervention in the class struggle]

We must first fully note the continuitythat links what we did this year with thestrategy implemented by Pierre Lambertin 1969. This is indisputable. Once again,for the most basic needs of the workingclass, we tried and managed to help allthose in the CGT-FO as in the CGT topush for the demand of the withdrawalof the draft law. We did that on a matter,

which, by its nature, concentrates the col-lective defense of the gains of the class,won after the period of the years 1944-1950 and which, therefore, concentratesthe independence of the class organiza-tions.

In 1969, the agreement with Bothereauled to the call for a Double Nolaunched by the CGT-FO in the referen-dum of De Gaulle, leading the CGT in itswake; it allowed the NO victory and thefall of De Gaulle and prevented corpo-ratist integration, putting its stamp fordecades on all relations between the

antagonist social classes; it paved theway for the implantation of hundreds of our members at the heart of our classorganizations, which shapes the contoursof our organization until today. In 2010,we helped successfully provide for theclass and for the tens of thousands of activists the focus of the demand forwithdrawal, to help focus the many dis-cussions among the cadres and militantsof the CGT in spite of the position of theleadership. The CGT-FO has taken uponitself to organize alone around this sloganand the demonstration of June 15 pre-vents again but in a different situation theintegration of the unions, supported byThibault-Chrque (in the context of thelaw on union representativeness) andwith the support of all leftist parties.

This does not mean necessarily that theunion bureaucracies cannot contain andtemporarily push back the movement of the class struggle in progress (as of September 23 this is not the case, butafter?). This is not a certainty but a possi-bility that must be taken into account. Buteven then, there would be no defeat of theclass; the movement would in one way oranother seek to re-emerge later.

Hence the importance in this context of trying to crystallize the strengthening of the partys established relationships inconnection with an orientation of politi-cal support to the struggle of the workingclass (through the conference, for exam-ple). The big difference with 1969 is thatthe workers have seized on the point of leverage we provided, and relayed this,with our help, to a new level, especiallyin the CGT, which remains the main tradeunion of our country. This is unprece-dented.

The Intervention of the Independent Workers Party (POI):From No Consensus with Sarkozy to the Fight for Unity for the

Withdrawal of the Counter-Reform ...

The Fight for thePreservation of theIndependence of the

Working ClassOrganizations



PERU

Presidential and Legislative Elections Will Be Held in April 2011The Fight for a Labor and Anti-Imperialist Candidate

For President of the Republic

By DANIEL VASQUEZ

In April 2011, the presidential andlegislative elections will take place inPeru. These will occur in a situationwhere many strikes against the con-sequences of free trade treaty, includ-ing privatization, are shaking thecountry. These elections may con-centrate the whole movement thatconverges against the free tradetreaty.

The whole nation is concerned,because the treaty would lead to theprivatization of all enterprises in thepublic service, a radical change inlabor laws and the loss of the essen-tial elements of national sovereignty,including the possibility that a U.S.military base would be opened in thecountry (especially after the Correagovernment of Ecuador decided toclose the U.S. base at Manta).

In this context, the Workers Partyof the City and Countryside (PTCC)is involved in the continuity of thestruggle for years against the governance

agreement between management, the Garciagovernment, and the CGTP [union confeder-ation]. Indeed, at the initiative of the localunion of the CGTP Lambayeque, a campaignwas launched in 2007 against this agreement.

Since the beginning of 2010, this localunion has organized a campaign for the sec-retary general of the CGTP Mario Huaman tohead a workers and peasants electoral slatefor the presidential and legislative electionsto be held in April 2011.

Already, some forty trade unions at variouslevels have expressed support for the nomi-nation. This includes the Federation of Building Workers during its 24th Congress,and key officials of the Mining Federation,the Federation of Port Workers, the NationalAgrarian Confederation (CNA). On July 17,at the headquarters of the CNA, 60 delegatesfrom 40 organizations met and adopted anappeal to launch the candidacy of MarioHuaman, and to continue the fight for theconvening of a National ConstituentAssembly.

On September 4, at the 10th NationalAssembly of Delegates of the CGTP, whichbrought together 200 delegates from acrossthe country, a debate took place around this

motion to support the candidacy of Mario

Huaman. Most speakers at this meeting react-ed favorably to the nomination, but the chairof the meeting did not submit this proposal toa vote. It considered the report of the 10thmeeting to be adopted ; this report called forthe assembly to favor a center-left electoralfront which should be led by Ollanta Humala,or another leader of that order.

Ollanta Humala is the leader of the bour-geois nationalist party, the Nationalist Partyof Peru. This candidate can be characterizedas a candidate of popular front which cir-cumvents one of the main issues: the break with the free trade treaty. Humala limits him-self to calling for the cancellation of some of the decrees.

Delegates who supported the candidacy of Mario Huaman continued the battle. Thus, onSaturday, September 11th there took placethe inauguration of the new executive com-mittee of the local union of Lambayeque, inthe presence of 150 officials and delegatesfrom across the county. The secretary gener-al of the CGTP Mario Huaman, was present.Unanimously, the delegates chanted the slo-gan: Mario Huaman, president!

On Wednesday September 15, a delegationfrom the Federation of Suger Workers spoke

with Mario Huaman to addressissues in its sector, and also to callon him to run for president.

He did not give a definitiveanswer, given that under the pushof the Communist Party, OllantaHumalas candidacy was launched.On October 11, there will be held ameeting in Lima for the candidacyof Mario Huaman.

For theNomination of Mario Huamanas President of the Republic!At the headquarters of the

National Agrarian Confederation,40 delegates from the Federation of SugarWorkers, Fisheries, the National Union of electrical engineers, workers, retirees of Sider Peru, the National Union Bank of theNation, with support from various leaders of the Federation of mines, including Nina andHugo Guillermo Aguilar, and also leaders of the PTCC, as well as several delegates fromother trade unions.

The meeting decided to call on MarioHuaman to head a workers, peasant andanti-imperialist slate, and prepare a nationalconvention to support the nomination. Thecentral axes of the candidacy would be theabrogation of the free trade treaty and priva-

tization, the cancellation of all anti-laborlaws, the adoption of a law of agrarianreform and the convocation of a NationalConstituent Assembly.

That same October 11 there took place inLima a national march of the mineworkersthat brought together 10,000 workers acrossthe country. On October 12 there was a newnational march in Lima for the nationaliza-tion of gas. These are unequivocal signs of resistance of the working class against thepolitical pro-imperialist government of AlanGarcia.



By ANDREU CAMPS

Faced with the structural adjustment plansimposed by the IMF and the EuropeanUnion, causing the resistance of the masses,political forces that call themselves anti-capitalist do not hesitate to take part in aprocess of accompanying these policies.

Of course, it might seem that the formula-tions used by these forces are very close toours. Thus, one of the NPA leaders inFrance, Pierre-Franois Grond, explains inthe magazine Contretempts (June 28):

Many so-called leftist parties are notsocialist parties but parties for the morehumane management of the system, a veryquestionable prospect when one examinesthe policies imposed by the Greek Socialist Papandreou, or the policies dic-tated by IMF and the WTO by the FrenchSocialists Dominique Strauss-Kahn orPascal Lamy.

Our purpose is not polemics. But it is nec-essary to look, in the light of the facts, atwhat the real practice of these forces is, not

just their rhetoric.

P.-F. Grond is careful in this articlepublished in late June 2010 not to men-tion once the vote of May 7 by his com-rades, who are members of the Left Bloc inPortugal one of the main forces, with theNPA, of the European anti-capitalist Left.

On May 7, the Portuguese government,led by the Socialist Socrates submitted toa vote by the Assembly of the Republic theso-called plan to help Greece, a plandemanded by the European Union. This planis once again aimed to bail out the banks andspeculators and to justify a program of civil

war against the Greek workers.What did the members of the Left Blocdo? They voted for the government legisla-tion (alongside members of the SocialistParty and the bourgeois PSD and CDSFrench) to provide loans to other membercountries of the Euro Zone, namely Greece.These financial operations, according to thelegislation passed by the PortugueseParliament, will remain subject to adoptionby Member States under specified condi-tions of funding, to empower and encourageas quickly as possible a return to market

financing.This did not prevent Cecilia Honorio, a

leader and member of the Left Bloc, fromdaring to provide this justification: To voteNo would have meant to impose bankrupt-cy in Greece, a scorched earth policy (Ojenewspaper, May 7). But arent the murder-ous plans imposed on Greece by the IMFand the European Union the real cause of thebankruptcy and the mass destruction of the productive forces?

Cecilia Honorio went on to call for a

European rating agency as she criticizedthe methods of the private rating agen-cies! We must, they say, rely on the unde-mocratic institutions of the European Unionto regulate the markets. This is exactly thecontent of successive statements of the so-called European Trade UnionConfederation, which calls for the EU toregulate the markets. What Portuguese,French or Greek worker can believe in thesefairy tales?

The new Socrates-Barrosogovernments austerity plan

On September 29, 2010, Prime MinisterSocrates announced in a press conferencehis austerity budget for 2011. This austeritybudget, which involves drastic cuts inwages, pensions and more generally all therights of Portuguese workers, has beenclearly rejected by both the UGT and CGTPunion confederations, which called for ageneral strike on November 24.

There is only one problem: by that date,the Assembly of the Republic is supposed tohave already adopted this budget.

And, as the parliamentary debate is

already underway, the Left Bloc has calledfor an alternative budget. Thus, in a state-ment in mid-October, the Left Bloc pro-posed new funding sources, including newtaxes on the most fortunate. Its proposal istitled Plan of alternative measures to com-bat deficits. The plan falls within the logicimposed by the European Union and theMaastricht criteria: equitable sharing of thesacrifice, which is far from the unanimousdemand of Portuguese workers to withdrawthe proposed austerity plan of Socrates-Barroso.

The Left Bloc, a Member of the European Anti-Capitalist Left:From the Vote for the Loan Strangling Greece to the

Presentation of an Alternative Budget

PORTUGAL



REUNION

Excerpts from Editorial fromThe Workers of Reunin, OpenForum of the Class Struggle ,

edited by the Trotskyist Groupof Reunin (section of the

Fourth International)

For Blacks imported from Africa,for the French, Indian, Chinese, andall immigrants, Reunin has becometheir land. Organizations claiming tospeak for the people of Reunion andits working class (especially theCommunist Party of Reunion PCR) have done everything to main-

tain the framework of submission tothe colonial power, refusing to raisethe question of independence [...] . Itis within this context, as well as thedecentralization laws and EuropeanUnion, that the PCR has done every-thing to maintain this framework of submission [...]. What Elie Domotahas raised for Guadeloupe ... isntthis also valid for Reunin? This iswhat he said: In Guadeloupe, westrive to make our country produc-tive by working to develop agricul-tural production and the transforma-tion of agriculture, to feed our peoplesufficient quality food. In response,

the French government, allied to thegiant distributors of imports, wantsto make our island a place of con-sumption of products from elsewhereby installing a deepwater port toeradicate local production, subordi-nating us to the goodwill of capitalistagribusiness.

The status quo cannot last. Theworld is in crisis. The crisis of worldimperialism is reflected clearly in itscolonies. ...

The Fourth International uncondi-tionally supports the right of peoplesto self-determination, therefore theright to independence. The Sectionof the Fourth International inReunion believes that under the colo-nial domination of France and theEuropean Union, whatever its insti-tutional form, there can be no posi-tive solution. The same holds for thesurvival of the capitalist system. TheSection of the Fourth International inReunion fights for the independenceof Reunion and for expropriation of the private ownership of means of production through a world socialistrevolution, through the free union of free peoples of the Indian Ocean.

ALGERIA

The Sixth Congress of theWorkers Party (PT) in Algeriawas held from August 27 to 29

in Zeralda (Algiers). The editori-al of Fraternity , the newspaperof the Workers Party of Algeria

(September), draws lessons fromthis conference, excerpts below.

For three days, the 931 delegatesrepresenting the rank and file within48 wilayas, discussed the politicalsituation internationally and domesti-cally, particularly the crisis of thedecaying capitalist system, an offen-sive of extreme brutality against theworking class and youth globally,against peoples and nations, confirm-ing the burning need for socialism asthe only alternative that can savehuman civilization from chaos.

[...] Reasserting the fundamentalsof the party, the congress delegatesexpressed the need for a clean break with the institutions of internationalcapital and their policies, such as theagreement with the EU and the con-cessions made in anticipation of theentry in the WTO, and the full arsenalof the Structural Adjustment Plans.This puts on the agenda a national

reconstruction plan initiating a realnational development, which in turnrequires on a political level the com-pletion of the reform to break withthe current one-party system, whichwas hampered by the nationaltragedy.

Thus, the question of electing asovereign Constituent Assembly was,for the first time since the foundingconvention of the PT in 1990, thefocus of debate as an immediatepolitical perspective, which confirmsthe correctness of the political cam-paign of the PT around the letter tothe President of the Republic to call

early elections, as a transitionaldemand. The situation of the workingclass, the youth and the peasantrywas the focus of interventions in rela-tion to the practical intervention of the party [...]. Democratic nationalquestions, especially equal rights,such as promoting the status of Tamazight as an official language,and the lifting of restrictions on free-doms, were widely discussed. Thisconfirmed that once peace wasrestored, the political priorities auto-matically were modified.

BELGIUM

How to Explain theCommunitarian Divisions?

Editorial from Belgian NewspaperWorkers Tribune, Published by

the Movement for the Defense of Workers (MTD)

(Excerpts)

The press and leaders of themajor political parties paint the fol-lowing picture of the current situa-tion [in Belgium]: There are twopeoples in this country, Flemishand Walloon, with Brussels in the

middle. History has inevitably pit-ted these peoples against eachother. And we are now facing, if possible, the last attempts to avoida divorce.

How to explain the communi-tarian divisions? What is the realissue today? What interests areinvolved? [...]

The bosses have, globally,plunged the world into an unprece-dented crisis. Billions of publicfunds have been sunk into thebanking system. Today, we are pre-sented with the bill: 22 billionEuros (at least) to be paid by 2015.

Such is the demand of theEuropean Union.And all those who, at political

level, control the countrys fate,swear by the European Union,starting with Bart De Wever him-self. The national conflicts that weare seeing right now cannot hide anunderlying issue: how to impose 22billion in austerity throughunprecedented social destruction?

So let us be clear. There is nofavorable outcome for workersfrom Flanders, Wallonia andBrussels in the field of communi-tarian confrontations [...].

The positions taken by theunions and the recent congress of the FGTB are essential majorpoints of support for the struggle.We must now implement them.There can be no way out unless, inthe shortest possible time, the lead-ers of the organizations of the labormovement meet their responsibili-ties and call on workers to take tothe streets and intervene in thepolitical situation before the sorcer-ers apprentice throws us into irre-mediable chaos [...].

CHINA

We Keep Hearing About theFantastic Chinese GDP

Editorial of The China Newsletter(September 15, 2010)

Chinas GDP, that is to say all thewealth produced in the country,reached the worlds second largestand surpassed that of Japan. But, aswas noted by a Chinese weeklynewspaper ( New Century, 23August), the GDP per person inChina is ten times lower than Japanand 40 million Chinese still live inpoverty. Note that, according to sta-tistics of the United Nations Programfor Development, which incorpo-rates the GDP into human develop-ment indicators (health, education,life expectancy), China in 2007 wasin between Georgia and Jordan. ...

Social development is laggingbehind, especially in the areas of education and culture as well asmedical care, added the newspaper,which did not however hide itsenthusiasm for the reforms that havebeen passed.

Is it not in the name of reformand openness that the state andpower, monopolized by theCommunist Party, dismantled and

wrecked the education and healthservices, conquests of the 1949 revo-lution that rapidly eradicated thescourge of illiteracy and epidemics?When workers spend three or fourmonths in annual wages to pay fortuition for her child, or go into debtfor life to care for her child with asickness, is this not intimately linkedto the rise of private capital in thename of openness?

While the minister of Humanresources and Social Security YinWeimin said a few days ago that 22million new jobs were created in twoyears thanks to the stimulus plan of

450 billion euros, in China there are24 million job seekers; 12 millionhigh school and college graduateswill arrive on the job market this yearand there are only 12 million jobsavailable ... This does not even countthe enormous mass of migrant work-ers [...]. We recall that an official inthe National Peoples Assembly lastMarch drew attention to the fact thatunemployment of migrants in someregions was between 25% and 35%![...] And were always hearing aboutthe fantastic Chinese GDP!

IN THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS PRESS



Review of Book byRussian HistorianAlexander Reznik

By JEAN-JACQUES MARIE

Early in 2010 there was published inMoscow, by Free Marxist Editions, a work of the young Russian historian AlexanderReznik, titled Trotskyism and the LeftOpposition in the Russian CommunistParty (Bolshevik) in 1923-1924 (Trotskizmleveja oppozitsia v RKP (b), 1923-1924Gody). It raises questions that are moretimely than ever, amid the bankruptcy of the anti-Communist and Stalinist versionsof Soviet history, says the editor in hisintroduction.

Reznik Alexander in his book gives avery clear account, and overall a quite goodone, of the battle led by Trotsky and theLeft Opposition in the fall and winter of 1923. He recalls the various stages of this

struggle that ended with a defeat of theOpposition. He brings in some new ele-ments, especially on the development of the fight in the Perm region (the Urals),where he researched the archives. TheCahiers du Mouvement Ouvrier proposes topublish excerpts of the pages on Perm. Andon this point, his work has an undeniableinterest. And, first of all, it holds interestfor Russian readers who know little aboutmost of this history.

Reznik recalls the various stages of thestruggle waged by Trotsky for the democra-tization of the party, industrialization andeconomic planning. In his letter to theCentral Committee on October 8, hedenounced the system of appointing offi-cials in the party [...] and the bureaucratiza-tion of the party apparatus that has grownin unprecedented proportions.

The author stresses the importance of theletter sent a week later by 46 cadres whoraised the same indictment in a confidentialletter to the Central Committee.Democracy within the Party is moribund.It is is no longer the party that elects itsleaders, but they who appoint the delegatesto the convention [...]. This intolerable

regime destroys the party by replacing itwith a selected bureaucratic apparatus.Reznik shows by analyzing the results of

the votes that the opposition was a minorityin the party. This is undeniable; althoughthe troika of Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenevshamelessly doubled votes, their majoritywas nevertheless real.

But we must emphasize two points towhich, despite the value of his work,Reznik does not give sufficient importance.The Russian Communist Party at that timehad only 35,000 workers out of 370,000members (9.5%). Two-thirds of its mem-bers were employees of the various appara-tuses of the party, the Soviets, the economy,the trade unions, the cooperatives and thearmy. Their freedom of thought and behav-ior was limited, especially in the apparatuswhere the pressure was higher than in thecampuses or in the barracks and or in thelabor cells in this period of unemployment.

Yet the demand for democracy wasstrong in the working class itself. The letterfrom the secretary of the Communist Partyof Ukraine Poltava Oblast, Maguidov,November 10, 1923 addressed to Stalin,provides an example. It illuminates the

depth of the crisis of the party and there-fore the echo for Trotsky and the 46. Heconsidered it absolutely abnormal that theCentral Committee informs nothing to thesecretaries of regional committees on theinternal situation of the party, while peopletalk about it everywhere. He refers to thestatement of Trotsky and the 46, though hedoes not know the exact content of theirpolitical positions. He denounced the lack of correct, fast, sharp information whilethe ranks want to know everything thathappens in reality. His positions are simi-lar to those of Trotsky, but he knows noth-ing of the latters positions. He writes:The partys old guard is wrecked. There isno live party life, the thinking of the partyhas stagnated. Maguidov called for theimplementation of workers democracywithin the party. The party apparatusincluded hundreds of Maguidovs. Stalinand Zinoviev want to prevent the LeftOpposition from finding a way to meet upwith them.

What could help the masses of the partyfree themselves from the dictates of theapparatus and allow for this junction withthe Left Opposition? Only the emergence

OUR REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY

Trotskyism and the Left Opposition inthe Russian Communist Party

(Bolshevik) in 1923-1924



of a revolutionary perspectiveabroad, which would allow SovietRussia to end its ruination via isola-tion, which pushed the party mem-bers to tighten around the apparatus.

Germany seemed to provide thislong-awaited opportunity. The socialand political crisis there was indeedexplosive. On July 10, workers whoprinted the insatiable printed moneywent on strike. The Ruhr, in armsagainst the occupying French, wasboiling. On August 12, the generalstrike swept out the Cuno govern-ment. The revolution was knockingat the door. The Communists, whowere progressing in all union elec-tions, enter the Social Democraticgovernments of Saxony andThuringia. At the news of the revolu-tionary upsurge in Germany, renewed

hope raised the enthusiasm of youngCommunist activists: the isolation of Soviet Russia would be broken.Trotsky pushed for the planning of aninsurrection.

But Stalin, as the expression of conservatism of the bureaucracy,opposed the revolution. In a letter toBukharin, he made things very clear:the German Communists should cer-tainly not move, they must let thefascists take the initiative. He says:If today the power in Germany, soto speak, collapsed and theCommunists were to seize it, theywould collapse with a crash [...]. Inmy opinion, we must hold back theGermans, not stimulate them. Stalinheld them back, against the advice of Trotsky, and muzzled them perma-nently.

Trotsky was only continuing thestruggle of Lenin, who, on March 12,1919, told the Petrograd Soviet: Theconstruction of socialism depends onthe speed with which the revolutionwill triumph in the largest countriesin Europe. Only after such a victorycan we seriously get down to this

construction.But the Maguidov letter shows thatthe revolution in Germany dominatedthe same daily concerns of workers.The workers were angered by theglaring inequality between thesummits and the ranks and privi-leges given to the bureaucrats. Theminers of Donbass live worse thancattle and are paid very irregularly.They overwhelmingly went on strikein October, explaining: we wouldhave settled our accounts [...], but it

is impossible to betray the Germanrevolution, which the mineworkersdid not want to weaken.

But the hope of revolution inGermany, which would break the iso-lation imposed for five years on theparty activists and, more broadly, theworkers, led to a fiasco. In Germany,on Oct. 21, there was a national con-ference in Chemnitz of the strikecommittees.

The Social Democratic delegates,even of the Left, voted against thegeneral strike. The German Partyleadership, with the approval andadvice from Moscow, cancel theplanned uprising. If, in October 1917the Bolsheviks had expected theagreement of the Mensheviks to takepower, there would never have beenany revolution in October. That deba-cle was especially demoralizingbecause it occurred without an actualstruggle. The party activists becamedemoralized. The defeat of theGerman Revolution was a turningpoint in the consolidation of theStalinist apparatus.

The apparatus always fed off thedefeats of the working class. Stalingave expression to this reality byproclaiming the theoretical possibili-ty of building socialism in one coun-try in December 1924. The feeling of isolation reinforced the aspiration to

close ranks. The apparatus and Stalindrove home the point: no matter whatit says, the opposition divides us, dis-tracts us from our tasks, paralyzes us.

Only the international dimensioncan give full illumination to struggleof the Left Opposition, the actualconditions of its development and itsfinal defeat. That is why the struggleof the Opposition revived when arevolutionary wave shook China.Contributing to the defeat of theChinese workers through his opensupport for Chiang Kai-shek, Stalinagain sealed the defeat of theOpposition.

Forgetting or underestimating thisfundamental aspect is to reduce thedouble defeat of the Opposition topurely internal Russian dynamics orto tactical mistakes which werereal but minor in terms of the overallimpact. Then, as is the case now, thebattle of the Russian working class isclosely tied to that of the worldworking class, with which it mustnecessarily link its struggle.

OUR REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY

Giuseppe Raspa, a fighter for the cause of workers

In memoriam of Comrade Giuseppe Raspafrom Maracaibo, on behalf of the GeneralCouncil of the Fourth International by

comrade Julio Turra, a leader of the Braziliansection of the Fourth International

It was with surprise and dismay that we learnedof the passing of our friend and comrade GiuseppeRaspa, which occurred on July 27 in Maracaibo.

Pepe, as he was known to his friends and com-rades in struggle, spent much of his life helping theworking class struggle for liberation from all formsof exploitation and oppression.

In his long history as a trade unionist and politi-

cal activist, Pepe participated in the struggle forthe reconstruction of the Fourth International thatwas reproclaimed in 1993 as a member of theVenezuelan section of the time. Since then, he hasbeen a representative as a delegate in our worldcongresses on more than one occasion.

In Zulia, Pepe has always been among the prin-cipal leaders and Organizers of the battles of theworking class, emphasizing the need for its inde-pendence, both in the political and labor arenas.That is why in recent times he, alongside his com-rades in the CTR-Zulia, played an important rolein organizing for a national assembly of UNETE,the independent trade union confederation. Pepewas engaged in building this confederation whenhe suddenly died.

Pepe was aware that a key dimension of thestruggle of workers for their emancipation was todefend the sovereignty of the nation against impe-rialist domination. And this offensive by imperial-ism is even heavier in the face of the open revolu-tionary process underway in Venezuela, which isfrequently threatened from without and from with-in, as was the case with the latest provocation byColombian president Uribe against of the govern-ment of Hugo Chavez.

Therefore Pepe, with other comrades, edited thenewsletter Issues of the Revolution in Venezuela,whose axis was the need for the self- organization

of the working class so that it can play its role inthe anti- imperialist united front and advance therevolutionary process in the country toward social-ism.

On behalf of the General Council of the FourthInternational, I want to express to the parents,friends and comrades in struggle of GiuseppeRaspa including our comrades in the FourthInternational our condolences and solidarity atthis sad time, with the certainty that the best tributewe can pay to the memory of this militant is tocontinue his fight.


16/16

BY HAMID B.

After September 26, the dateof expiration on the moratoriumon Israeli settlements, Israelipublic radio announced: Thebuilding of over 1500 homes,having obtained all necessarypermits from Israeli authorities,can begin immediately. (ElWatan, 27 September)

Israeli settlers did not waitone single day to start the con-tinuation of settlements, even if

it was done symbolically.Shortly after the moratorium,the Israeli prime minister,Benjamin Netanyahu, called onMahmoud Abbas to pursuepeace negotiations through acommuniqu that made no ref-erence to the expiration of themoratorium. Unscrupulously,Netanyahu wrote: I appeal toPresident Abbas to continue tolead the good and honest discussions wehave just launched to try to reach an historicagreement between our two peoples (TheCourier, 28 September).

Mahmoud Abbas clings to the peaceprocess. While demanding a total cessationof settlements to continue negotiating,Abbas called at the same time on Israel toextend [the moratorium for] three to fourmonths. (Ibid.)

The daily El Watan, quoted above,stressed: While Israel continues to imposeits rules, ruling out the possibility of endingthe building of settlements, the PalestinianAuthority president, cornered by his ownpeople, is adamant, demanding a total shut-down of the settlements as a pre-conditionfor the resumption of negotiations. Then, the

Palestinian leader gave the impression hewould make concessions, suggesting that hewould not slam the door easily and stated inthe newspaper Al Hayat that he wanted toconsult the Arab League to see what positionto take.

Once again, President Mahmoud Abbasleaves no doubt about the nature of thePalestinian Authority which, devoid of polit-ical autonomy vis--vis the U.S. administra-tion and the State of Israel, is unable to with-stand the pressures of the latter even when ittakes certain positions against the former.

Indeed, according to the daily newspaper Libert on September 12, Obama revealedthat he told Netanyahu that, as the talkswere heading in the right direction, it madesense to extend the moratorium. WhenObama talks about good direction, we mustunderstand here that he means good accord-ing to the interests of the U.S. administrationand those of the State of Israel. Moreover,Obama did not fail to recognize that theIsraeli Prime Minister was facing a verydifficult political situation, with the rightflank of his coalition government rejectingdialogue with the Palestinians. Likewise,Obama asked Mahmoud Abbas, who him-self is criticized within his own party forresuming negotiations without conditions,to show the Israeli public that he was seri-

ous and constructive in these discussions.Despite all the concessions, MahmoudAbbas must do more. One million five hun-dred thousand Palestinians live under a mur-derous siege that has lasted for years; nearly5 million of them live in refugee camps ininhumane and catastrophic conditions forthe vast majority of them, and they continueto be driven out of what remains of theirland and their houses. Barack Obama callson Abbas to convince the Israeli publicthat he is serious and constructive in thediscussions. But it has been 17 years since

the Palestinian Authoritybegan negotiations with Israel,under the auspices of theUnited States.

What was the purpose of these negotiations? To makethe Palestinian leadershiprenounce any other meansthan negotiations for the set-tlement of the conflict, aftermaking them accept the defacto partition and the two-state solution. The so-calledPalestinian state has led

negotiations to the impasse,with more violence and morehardships for the Palestinianpeople. This so-calledPalestinian State was sup-posed to lead, via the negoti-ations, toward the recoveryof land to the Palestinians andthe dismantling of Israeli set-tlements. The negotiationshave reached the point of

requesting the freezing of the constructionof more settlements and the extension of ashort moratorium on their construction, toallow for these negotiations to continue.

How long do the sponsors of the two-state solution, the advocates of negotia-tion, think they have to continue to make itappear that such an option is a solution thatwill bring peace to the peoples of theregion?

Perhaps they want to wait until after themid-term legislative elections in the UnitedStates? Will this allow Obama and theDemocrats, during the election, to convinceAmerican voters that they are better candi-dates than the Republicans to bring peacein the Middle East?

The Palestinian people who suffer martyr-

dom have their own beliefs: A recent pollby the Palestinian Institute Amrad revealsthat 86% of Palestinians support armedresistance [Hamas] that 91% want a singlePalestinian state in the entire territory of his-toric Palestine.

These two fundamental questions, resist-ance and the solution of a single seculardemocratic state on all historic Palestine werent these the basis of the founding of the Palestinian national movement, fromwhich Mahmoud Abbas and those currentlyleading the Palestinian people emerged?

Resumption of Direct Negotiations on the Basis of the Two-State Solution

91% of Palestinians are for a one-state solution

PALESTINE

ic no. 4 int'l edit

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