16/12 Why internationalism and why an international : Léon Crémieux
Resolution 16th World Congress: Role and tasks of the Fourth International
The G20, Global Capital and the conjuncture
interview with Walden Bello
Report on the world situation, 16th World Congres
The International becomes a perspective
Gains and losses
Outline of the lecture
How resistances are becoming global
- The world system and globalisation have a class content and are imperialist and oppressive.
Economy War Political organisation of national, regional and global domination
Multiple social consequences Overexploitation, mechanisms for deregulation of the job market The command economies of Russia and China have been reintegrated in the capitalist system A policy of taking control of resources, of energy with a neo-colonial policy of war and oppression Destruction of ecosystems An international mechanism of the crises of the economy and of financial circulation an speculation
The sharpening of exploitation is linked to the retention of non democratic systems. Archaic structures of domination, states oppressive against national minorities, are in support of the exploiters.
The neoliberal globalisation solidifies systems of oppression and reinforce the systems of exploitation
- The breakdown of the resistances and of social perspectives
As you have seen, the link between the different consequences of globalisation does not produce automatically a common awareness of the origins of these attacks and certainly not a common consciousness of the necessary political answers.
The divide between imperialist and dominated countries, amongst each group of countries, women’s oppression, ethnic discrimination, … they all give the possibility for the imperialists the maintain this breakdown of awareness: - the indigenous women farmer from Peru, the US miner, the Palestinian women artisan, the French information technology women worker, the Chinese worker, the public servant from Mali, the Chechen lorry driver, how could they all have the awareness of belonging to the same class, to have a common interest in putting their forces together for the fight against the common enemy … and for a common future that got rid of capitalism? In all their daily struggles, their horizon does not spontaneously build these links of solidarity.
The shows the absolute necessity of the fight by anticapitalist militants, by revolutionaries who work for strategies of unity of the workers, the exploited and who work towards the unification of the class struggle, of the fight against oppressions, of the ecological battle.
- The mirage of the unified battle in the 20th Century
A certain image of the battles during the 20th Century could let you think that this breakdown only happened the last twenty years after the wall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the “socialist” bloc. But this bloc did not unify the national resistances who paid a high price for this, all the more if they did not cooperate with the strategies of soviet diplomacy The socialist bloc was in reality a prison for the people just like Russia and China today… But the international reality of the sixties and seventies presented another relationship of forces thanks to the militants in the anti colonial revolutions in Africa and in Asia and the fronts for the struggle in Latin America, and the energetic workers battles in western Europe.
Internationalist activists had a global political view and in their analysis, they saw the unity of the “sectors of world revolution” even if the actors themselves in those sectors were in most cases not aware of this … The vanguard elements in numerous struggles developed a socialist and internationalist perspective … even if this took the form of wanting to joins the anti imperialist camp …
Sadly, many anti colonial struggles, feminist struggles and fights against discriminations, national liberation struggles, ecological struggles remained separated from each other or were even contradictory.
Crisis of anti imperialist leaderships Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia
- The growth of the anti globalisation movement in the nineties
Dynamics and limits From Seattle to Porto Alegre Platform and contradictions of the movement concerning strategic questions
- The return of the debate on strategy
Brazil, Italy
The class nature of exploitation The class nature of the States The necessity to overthrow the state to overthrow the economic system The crisis since 2008, the sovereign debts crisis expose the real nature of the economic system
What is the content for socialism of the 21st Century?
Political democracy, elected assemblies, structures of committees (soviets) Who takes the leadership?
The organisation of production
Tensions … in relation to abundance and the ecological question Oppression and resolving contradictions Mastering the economic and financial mechanisms
- Why is an International needed?
Linked to the need for the party International = World Party of the revolution
Crooked roads: 1st , 2nd , 3rd 4th International : the gap between necessity and reality
How to make progress today: The Fourth, continental networks International currents Which means to advance?