The way forward in the Fourth International

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The following text is the conclusion of a document by the Committee for an International Bolshevik Leninist Faction (CIBLF) which, following the International Pre-conference hosted by the Workers Socialist League in December, has now dissolved itself into the Trotskyist International Liaison Comcarlier sections of the CIBLE document examine the history and political degeneration of the post var Fourth International and the nature of its component parts today Trotsky speaking at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern "15) The Fourth International is not dead, nor has it been destroyed. It has undergone a process of political degeneration which has led to it being organisationally scattered. Today it lives on in the form of different factions. These cannot -with some limited exceptions -be considered as tantamount to the opportunist organisations of the labour movement:

They comprise the most conscious element of the world proletarian vanguard. Their politics are generally centrist in nature, but with special features. In : reality these positions still do not reflect a complete break from the programmatic basis of Bolshevism. Still less do they constitute a direct reflection of social forces alien to the proletariat (the labour aristoçracy, the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy, the petty bourgeois intelligentsia, etc). This makes them unlike Stalinist, Social Democratic and partly also unlike. centrist parties.

This, together with the continuing processes of internal clashes, factional struggles and splits (which show the viability of a debate within the Fourth International and the search by its militants-though in confused fashion-for a correct orientation) makes it possible and necessary to adopt a perspective of regenerating the Fourth International.

We reject as schematic those conceptions which, starting out from the reality of the centrist. degeneratión of most factions of the Fourth International, draw the conclusion that all revisionist organisations are itreparably lost to Trotskyism, and which equate them with opportunist organisations foreign to the This film isn a good example. of how the ideology behind many Hollywood productions reflects the dominant ideology of American capitalism.

It depicts co-operation, albeit at first unwillingly, between Russian and American space scientists" against a common external threat -a huge meteor, which has been mittee.

Trotskyist movement.

The task facing orthodox Trotskyists is therefore to buila a Bolshevik-Leninist faction of the Fourth International, based on the political lines of the Theses and Resolutions of the 1936, 1938 and 1940 Conferences.

But while rejecting the sectarian position that considers every Trotskyist-revisionist organisation as lost for Bolshevisin, Bolshevik-Leninists must at the same time reject as delusory any hypothesis of a spontaneous evolution of the revisionist factions towards orthodox Trotskyism.

Instead it is necessary to engage in a struggle for the regeneration and Bolshevik reorganisation of the FI, similar to the struggle waged by the Left Opposition in the Comintern from 1929-33. Bolshevik Leninists must consider as lost, incapable of regeneration and completely outside the Fourth International those right wing forces which have definitely entered the counter-revol utionary camp.

Within the organisations of the centre, it is necessary to promote the formation of Bolshevik-Leninist factions, linked both to each other (independently of the sections of the Trotskyist movement in which they intervene) and to independent orthodox Trotskyist organisations within the framework of an international Bolshevik-Leninist Faction, which must itself be based on demodislodged from the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter by a chance collision with a new comet.

This meteor is heading straight 'for. Earth. The film appears at a time when negotiations on stratetic arms limitations (SALT H) have-until the Afghanstian events-been in the air and dove-like views on this topic have become popular amonest the maior presidential cratie centralist methods, both nationally and internationally.

Such factions should, in general, avoid engaging in a split. Instead they should make the centrist leaderships responsible for any administrative measures-such. as expulsionsthat may occur. A comparable attitude should be taken within ultra-left Trotskyist-revisionist organisations.

The international Bolshevik-Leninist Faction as such, and the independent orthodox Trotskyist_ organisations must express the positions and present the public activity of candidates.

Once unthinkable, high level collaboration between Russia and America in overseeing each other's military/space activities is now a distinct possibility.

The plot is not as preposterous as it sounds. Geologists have deduced that the Earth has indeed been bombarded by enormous meteorites in its past.

Some of these may have left craters several hundred kilometres across.

These are hard to discern except on satellite photographs because subsequent geological and human activity has tended to obscure their outlines.

Of course most meteors heading towards earth are so small that they burn up in our atmosphere without even reaching the Earth's surface.

Others are reduced in size to that of stones and do little damage.

Large objects

But several hundred large objects (up to a few metres across) land on the Earth's the Bolshevik Leninists towards both the whole Fourth International and towards the forces of the labour movement outside the arena of Trotskyism.

The above tactical indications do not imply that there is any sure, established pathway for regenerating and reorganising the Fourth International in a Bolshevik manner-nor that it is necessary or probable that one or more of the present FI factions will be successfully regenerated.

But only a flexible, dialectical strategy for its regeneration, combining independent work in the labour movement with factional intervention within revisionist organisations, will allow us to accomplish the complex . process which -through splits, fusions, partial regeneration and the growth of independent work-will enable the Bolshevik-Leninist Faction to recruit the political majority of Trotskyist militants, so becoming transformed into a regenerated Fourth International. Clearly there exist different practical possibilities for developing such action by Bolshevik-Leninists.

For this reason they mustunder the sole condition of maintaining the political independence of the orthodox Trotskyist faction-be ready to adjust their tactics to concrete developments in the situation of the Fourth International.

16) The basic aim of the Committee for an International Bolshevik Leninist Faction (CIBLF), is to favour unity of all consistent Trotskyist forces into one and' the same, democratic centralist international faction.

At present the most important consistent Trotskyist organisation, namely. the WSL/GB, together with allied seek, American, lurkish and Danish organisations, is carrying out activity towards the construction of an international tendency • on. an orthodox Trotskyist basis.

The CIBLF wishes all orthodox Trotskyist forces, all over the world, to participate in such a process of building an international faction. It believes that in the framework of such a process there are al the conditions for the necessary work of achieving political homoBy our science correspondent Extract from "Theses on the Crisis of the Fourth International and the Tasks of Bolshevik Leninists".

geneity between the various consistent Trotskyist organisations.

This task of homogenisation and political clarification imposed both by the need to draw a balance sheet of thirty years of the crisis of the Fourth International, and by the quite different origins of the present orthodox Trotskyist organisations.

All of them, however, share experiences of a clearcut break from different forms of opportunist revisionism (Pabloism, Healyism, Lambertism, etc, ato most have also come 1n10 conflict with and rejected the sectarian caricature of Trotskyism represented by the IST.

The CIBLF declares that at the very moment it is able to participate with full rights in the preparatory activity being carried out by the WSL and its allies for founding the international faction of consistent Trotskyists, its own transitional role will become exhausted and thus «the CIBLF as such will dissolve."

With amendments aceustruct the fourth Inters - No. 1 Nov. 1979 DISCUSSION BULLETIN 60p.

Price 75p includine postaxe from: WSL, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 IHR. by their combined fire power. The fire power of either missile bank alone would not be enough.

Technically, the film is not very impressive. The special effects are, the poorest of the latest crop of science fiction films to come from Hollywood.

However, the early arrival of fragments of the meteor allows the producers to cram in an avalanche sequence, a tidal wave sequence and the partial devastation of Manhattan, to warm up audiences for the final climax.

The aerial view of devastated Manhattan, however, is so poor that it looks more like a burning Winston cigarette advertisement.

The producers couldn't resist certain chauvinist touches: thus, for instance, fewer Russian missiles reach their target than American ones, in a small jibe at allegedly inferior Russian technology.

The film fosters the illusion that scientists form some sort of elite cadre, insulated from political developments, and immune to the base motive of