Introducing 'Fourth International'

[p004] Introducing ‘Fourth International’ THIs IS THE first number of FourTH INTERNATIONAL, a journal of international Marxism published by the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. It replaces LABOUR. REVIEW, the theoretical organ of the Socialist Labour League which, especi- ally since January 1957, has carried on a forthright Marxist struggle against all forms of’ revisionism. After the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution it became the rallying centre for all those members and ex-members of the British Communist Party who were endeavouring to understand the betrayals and counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism, As distinct from other journals which appeared at the time, LaBouR REviEW did not confine itself solely to analysis of what went wrong in the Soviet Union; it turned its attention more and more towards the task of constructing the revolutionary party in Britain and the reorganisation of the Fourth Inter- national. In the pages of LaBourR REVIEW revolu- tionary theory and practice were brought together, and led to the formation, in the spring of 1959, of the Socialist Labour League, an organisation fighting for Marxism within the labour movement. The preparatory work of LaBour REVIEW from 1957-1959 then underwent a qualitative change. Opportunists such as Peter Fryer, who was once an editor of LABouR REviEw, deserted the Marxist movement to be followed early in 1960 by a handful of sectarians under the leadership of Brian Behan. Such an experience was a necessary part of the struggle to consolidate the Marxist cadre within the League. Other ex-members of the Communist Party who broke from Stalinism in 1956, now emerged as fully developed Marxists. They had acquired a knowledge they could never have gained inside the Communist Party of the importance of' the political struggle against opportunism and sectarianism, in the construction of the revolutionary party. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 The 1960 Conference of the Socialisé Labour League brought to a close that stage of the struggle against the opportunist and sectarian elements who collaborated with LaBour REVIEW after the Hun- garian Revolution. The League and LasBour REVIEW now turned their attention particularly towards political developments within the youth movement in the universities and the Labour Party and towards a closer study of the problems that were emerging inside the trade unions and the Labour Party. This work has brought great advantages to the Socialist Labour League. There were three times as many delegates and visitors present at the Sixth Conference as were at its founding conference in 1959. The average age of the delegates was 24 years. Today the League is the most youthful and theoretically advanced Marxist organisation in Britain. But it would be a great mistake to believe that our progress is based upon tthe policies we apply towards the British labour movement. On the contrary, such work as has been carried out would have amounted to very little were it not for the sustained international political struggle which we have waged against modern revisionism. In January 1961, we opened up a discussion with the Socialist Workers’ Party ‘concerning its capitula- tion to Pabloite revisionism, which is based upon adaptation to the reformist and Stalinist bureau- cracies, and the bourgeois national leaderships of colonial and semi-colonial countries. At first the Socialist Workers’ Party avoided the discussion by simply ignoring it. So contemptuous had these pragmatists become of the international movement that 18 months elapsed before they thought it necessary to make something resembling a serious reply to the criticisms of the Socialist Labour League. This did not mean that they were inactive. Far

[p005] from it. Behind the scenes they were already in negotiation with the Pablo group in Paris. Eventu- ally they worked out a formula which brought their dilapidated centrist forces into some kind of organisational relationship opposed to the Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International, an organisation to which the Socialist Labour League is affiliated. This discussion was not confined to the pages of the controversial internal documents. It was brought out into the open within the British labour movement by members of the League, especially the youth. Out of their own experiences they were able to see almost at a glance what Pabloite com- promise with ‘bureaucratic leadership means in practice. They had the experience of being witch- hunted by an unholy united front of the extreme right wing, the Pabloites and that other gang of anti-Soviet opportunists known as_ the state capitalists. Whilst the international discussion did not, unfor- tunately, clarify the leaders of the Socialist Workers’ Party, it did clarify and rearm hundreds of young people who are now playing a leading role in the construction of the revolutionary party in Britain. The success of LABOUR REviEW and the Socialist Labour League is therefore based on this inter- national struggle rather than the practical side of our activity. The more our members, politically, fought the Pabloite revisionists, the stronger we became. The international struggle against the revisionists came to a head when the SWP broke from the International Committee and the Socialist Labour League and renewed its relations with the Pabloite camp, in the late summer of 1963. Now the International Committee of the Fourth International was called upon to assume the leadership of all those Marxists throughout the world who are fighting to build revolutionary parties and whose work requires, above all, the reorganisation of Trotsky’s world party of socialist revolution founded in 1938. This decision is now of great historical importance to the Socialist Labour League. We are moving into a pre-revolutionary era where great political and class battles loom ahead. We are called upon to develop a new cadre of leaders from amongst the youth especially, who will provide the alternative leadership to the bankrupt traitors of reformism led by Harold Wilson. But this is not a task which can b2 resolved in Britain. It is first and foremost an international responsibility, inseparable from the the building of the Fourth International as the world party of socialist revolution. All the main problems EDITORIAL in Britain today are in effect bound up with the problems of decadent international imperialism. The revolutionary leadership which is now being trained and prepared through the work of the Socialist Labour League must of necessity be an integral part of a world leadership with an inter- national Marxist outlook concerning the interrelation of all the problems of the world labour movement including Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Hence the need for replacing LAaBouR REVIEW with the FourTH INTERNATIONAL. The Socialist Labour League must take its place firmly inside the international vanguard of the world party of socialist revolution. It is through the work of our new magazine and the building of that world party that we shall pass from the stage of the training of cadres from amongst the student and working-class youth, to the stage when we shall be able to provide leadership in all the struggles of the day. Again, it is not enough to launch FouRTH INTERNATIONAL with an editorial board which includes the most advanced international thinkers in the Marxist movement today. We have to provide our magazine with a programme which will not only enable it to analyse, but to provide leadership in the irreconcilable struggle against international capital. We have to make it the medium for a conscious effort to develop dialectical materialism in conflict with all forms and manifestations of bour- geois ideology. Here is the greatest challenge of all. In the last year of its work, LaBouR REVIEW was devoting itself more and more to this task. The FourtH INTERNATIONAL promises in its first number to continue the urgent struggle between Marxist philosophy and its opponents. Our magazine should avoid like the plague the habits of the abstract propagandist school which has done so much to damage and weaken the international Trotskyist movement in the past. The struggle for dialectical materialism emerges from our recognition that enormous class forces are now in motion under conditions which demand the most minute study. Dialectical materialism is the direct opposite of arid, abstract and lifeless propaganda. It studies all the forces in motion in order to enable the Marxists to work out a perspective that will lead the working class to the triumph of socialism. The time is now overripe for such work. Just as the youthful cadres of the Socialist Labour League contributed mightily to the defeat of Pabloite revisionism in Britain, so they must now join hands with their comrades all over the world to establish the FouRTH INTERNATIONAL as the real international organ of militant revolutionary Marxism. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p006] EDITORIAL