by PEDRO FUENTES
January 11, 2010 — At the meeting of left-wing political parties and socialists held in Caracas on the eve of the congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called for the formation the Fifth Socialist International. In a strong speech in which he summarised the history of international socialist organisations, Chavez said, Confronting the capitalist crisis and the threat of war that threatens the future of humanity, it is time to convene the Fifth International, towards the unity of the left parties and revolutionaries willing to fight for socialism … of the parties and socialist currents and social movements in the world to create a common strategy for the fight against imperialism, the overthrow of capitalism by socialism.
At that meeting, which had a clearly anti-imperialist tone, there were many parties that were out of place; including, the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Chinese Communist Party and even the Brazilian Workers Party (PT). Others were missing, for example, the Brazilian Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL), the French New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), the National Resistance Front of Honduras and the Revolutionary Tendency of El Salvador, among others.
The call for a new international was quickly accepted by a section of those attending – the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia, the New Country Party of Ecuador President Rafael Correa, the militant Patricia Rhodas, representing the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and other left wing groups such as the Socialist Alliance of Australia. There was an explicit rejection from the communist parties (except Cuba’s) and the Brazilian PT, because for them the São Paulo Forum is still in effect.
Beyond all the contradictions of Bolivarianism and the critical situation of the Venezuelan process due to the weight of the bureaucracy, Chávez offered a proposal that we consider progressive towards filling the international vacuum that exists today; an advance that may become a leap to create an alternative to the deep capitalist crisis we live in and provide a response to imperialist policy.
Political vacuum
The PSOL’s — and all of those who claim to be anti-imperialist and socialist, as the NPA of France and other socialist forces that have already replied — response to that call must be “We are present”. We are present and we will be there because we want to participate in the construction of this process that has just begun and whose next date is the late April meeting in Caracas.
This proposal, if it materialises, is inclined to address an acute contradiction that exists in today’s world situation. On one hand, the acute crisis of global capitalism has placed a concrete and urgent need for international coordination and international organisation. But at the same time, what we have so far is a political vacuum in the international arena. This vacuum exists today because there is no international organisation that is, or that may be, a real pole for the world vanguard and the most radicalised sectors of mass movement. The World Social Forum meetings, which were once a progressive place to coordinate the actions of the anti-globalisation and antiwar movements, have been losing strength as they have become increasingly controlled by parties like the PT and other international bureaucratic institutions and apparatus.
Likewise, for us, the São Paulo Forum, under the hegemony of the Brazilian PT, has followed the bourgeois direction of that party so it is not a viable reference. The fronts or coalitions of the communist parties that exist in Europe are primarily interested in recovering parliamentary or governmental positions, so they are not a viable reference either. Neither are the Trotskyist organisations, even though they do have an international practice. The self-called Fourth International, that [originated from] the division of the United Secretariat, has developed some work with the masses and encouraged the France’s Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) to participate in the creation of the NPA, is also not viable. And neither are the various international organisations to reclaim the Fourth International. Trotskyism is no more than small groups exclusively proud of their international positions.
Surely there will be those who, in name of “purity of program”, will reject the call from Caracas, or will require that this meeting provide a definite program for the international socialist revolution as it existed in the Third and Fourth internationals. For us, still valid is Marx’s sentence criticising the long but ambiguous Gotha Program which would unite the two German socialist currents: “Better a joint action than half dozen programs.”
LINKS for more