Movements and the strategic need for a party.

Movements and the strategic need for a party. 20.

Outline of lecture

Movements and the strategic need for a party. 5 December 2025

Introduction - the speaker - the choice of reading material - role of the school

1. The role and strategic importance of social movements

parties and movements are side by side, not above and below (Rousset)

1.1 self-organization around specific situation - work, neighbourhood, rural community, educational establishment or specific oppression or social questions (climate, ecology etc) - first step in mobilizing sections of working and popular classes => elaboration of demands and challenges to capitalist system => development of class consciousness

1.2 tasks of party in social movements - build movement and struggles - advocate a class struggle orientation - needs of most oppressed, - collective forms of action - build links between movements (intersection/convergence) - build international links - fight for independence from state/government/parties - raise question of who rules? - recruit!

2. The strategic importance of building parties what happens to revolutions without parties options for alternative overall orientations (Rousset)

2.1 The party ensuring continuity and renewal of key political ideas - internationalism - permanent revolution - united front - transitional method

2.2 The party form - broad democratic reflection and collective decision for action - activist party, defined boudaries - how to guarantee democracy - not an island of socialism - specific situations may require specific forms of organisation (dictatorship, clandestinity, armed self-defence etc)

3. The strategic orientation of the Fourth International and tactical choices Our strategic objective is the building of mass revolutionary parties and a mass revolutionary International (2018) - how do we get there?

3.1 Common orientation in specific national situation - general context on the one hand the geopolitical chaos, and on the other the uneven and contradictory processes of radicalization, against a background of a crisis of class-consciousness. - build parties that are useful in the class struggle. That is to say parties that can assemble the forces and decide on actions that have an effect and advance the class struggle on the basis of a class struggle approach and programme, the ultimate goal of such a party being obviously to get rid of the existing capitalist system, in whatever general terms this may be expressed. - This perspective commits the forces of the FI to being an integral and loyal part of building and leading these new parties, not simply aiming to recruit or wait to denounce eventual betrayals. - Have to take into account history and current dynamics in a particular country - This explains the wide variety of party projects we are engaged in

3.2 A transitional form - change as political situation changes - best if the party instrument itself changes to meet new needs - if it becomes inadequate have to break but does not mean previous project was wrong eg Workers Party, Rifondazione, Podemos - the problem is not solved by proclaiming in timeless fashion the party we are building now is the revolutionary party

Questions:

1. How do we organized the link between our work in social movements and the party? Commissions? Fractions? No organized link?

2. Bensaïd quote in reading material about what is a revolutionary militant. Do you agree? Why? Why not?

3. An injury to one is an injury to all - discuss.

Overview and reading material

1. Concerning the importance of social movements we will refer to:

Our orientation and tasks in social movements (World Congress 2025)

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/874/696

Especially:

1. Why social movements are strategically important

2. Concerning the party

2.1 We will discuss the party as a means of ensuring continuity and renewal of key political ideas as outlined here:

Role and Tasks of the Fourth International 2010

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/513/75)

7. The Fourth International and its sections have played and still play a vital role in defending, promoting and implementing a programme of demands that are both immediate and transitional towards socialism; a united-front policy that aims for mass mobilization of workers and their organizations; a policy of working-class unity and independence against any type of strategic alliance with the national bourgeoisie; opposition to any participation in governments that merely manage the State and the capitalist economy having abandoned all internationalism or fight for an end to inequality and discrimination on gender, racial, ethnic, religious or sexual orientation grounds.

The Fourth International has played and still plays a functional role in keeping alive the history of the revolutionary Marxist current, “to understand the world”, to confront the analyses and the experiences of revolutionary militants, currents and organizations and to bring together organizations, currents and militants who share the same strategic vision and the same choice of broad convergences on revolutionary bases. The existence of an international framework that makes it possible “to think about politics” is an indispensable asset for the intervention of revolutionaries. Consistent internationalism must pose the question of an international framework. […]

[…] a major difference between the FI and all these tendencies, over and above political positions, which is to the credit of the International, is that it is based on a democratic coordination of sections and militants, whereas the other international tendencies are “international-factions” or coordinations based on “party-factions” which do not respect rules of democratic functioning, in particular the right of tendency. […]

and highlighted here:

Role and party-building tasks of the Fourth International (World Congress 2018)

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/511/3

7. Lessons from the balance sheets (summarised)

• participation in the social movements and struggles of the oppressed and exploited. learn from these movement to deepen and enrich our own programme.

• building active, radical and class-struggle trade-unions,

• independent attitude to the state, institutions; to elections as a support to the activity in the mass movement,

• the importance of an active international and internationalist understanding of the world political situation

• the necessity for democratic and transparent functioning with broad democracy including tendency rights,

• the importance of addressing the questions thrown up in the struggles and fightbacks of the oppressed and exploited (notably feminism, ecology, LGBTQI, and others);

• an unremitting fight against all forms of racism - including against indigenous populations, anti-Semitism, islamophobia and for free movement of migrants, on the basis of solidarity and unity;

• the importance of renewal of organisations through an open and dynamic attitude to recruiting radicalizing youth

• the need for continuing educational programmes including on strategic questions such as the state or the question of power, and international questions.

2.2 We will also consider the need for the party form as considered here:

Reflections on the “party question” (expanded version) – an overview - Pierre Rousset

https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article4979

Including

The Feminist Challenge to Traditional Political Organizing - Penelope Duggan

https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article7115

and

The tyranny of structurelessness - Jo Freeman

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Noting also these two contributions:

Daniel Bensaïd (Translated by PD from Le pari mélancolique, Fayard 1997, p. 121.)

This is also why the conception of the revolutionary militant for Lenin is not the good combative trade-unionist, but that of a popular tribune intervening in “all layers of the population” to grasp the real way in which a multiplicity of contradictions come together. This question is at the heart of the famous debate over the statutes of the party, discussed in a very detailed way in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/onestep/index.htm. The definition of who should be a member of the party (someone who is satisfied with identifying with the party, helping it, “sympathizing”, or someone who is active in one of its regular bodies, who pays dues, who feels responsible for the collective decisions) is not a formal or administrative dispute. What is at stake in this small difference, that seems innocuous, is the boundary between the party and the class. Because it is precisely the party form which makes it possible to intervene in the political field, to have an effect on what is possible, not to passively submit to the ebbs and flows of the class struggle.

Ernest Mandel Leninist Theory of Organization 1971

https://www.ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1970/leninist_theory_organisation.htm

https://www.anticapitalistas.org/IMG/pdf/Mandel-LaTeoriaLeninistaDeLaOrganizacion.pdf

• In this text we read: “it would be giving the capitalist mode of production too much credit to assume it to be a perfect school for preparing the proletariat for independent activity” and thus need for “counter-tendencies” => positive action for women and others object of oppressions

3. The strategic orientation of the Fourth International and the tactical choices

3.1 A common orientation implemented in a specific national situation

Role and Tasks of the Fourth International 2010

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/513/75)

5. […] The common goal, via different paths, is that of broad anti-capitalist parties. It is not a question of taking up the old formulas of regroupment of revolutionary currents alone. The ambition is to bring together forces beyond simply revolutionary ones. These latter can be a support in the process of bringing forces together as long as they are clearly for building anti-capitalist parties. Although there is no model, since each process of coming together takes account of national specificities and relationships of forces, our goal must thus be to seek to build broad anti-capitalist political forces, independent of social democracy and the centre left, formations which reject any policy of participation or support to class-collaborationist governments, today in government with social-democracy and the centre left, forces which understand that winning victories on women’s rights, like in the abortion referendum in Portugal, strengthen the radical anti-capitalist forces.

Role and party-building tasks of the Fourth International (2018)

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/511/3

(extracts)

1. Introduction

[…] The key idea is that we cannot generalize a model for what FI has to do, although it is obvious that some apparently more successful experiences will tend to be imitated; but we have to get used to a situation in which the concrete experiences are different and maybe sometimes apparently going in a different direction. One of the problems that we have had is the involuntary tendency sometimes to consider only what is going on in some key countries (France a few years ago, etc), and not internationalize enough our thinking; the discussion on different experiences in the last ICs has been good to pluralize more our perspective; and this is the focus of this role and tasks resolution.

2. A reorientation in the 1990s

[…]

Already in 1991 the resolution on Latin America had stated: “It is obviously impossible to offer a single orientation for all our sections. There is no one single model for party building nor a single line for party building valid for all times and all places. It is now clear that the Nicaraguan revolution and the constitution of the Brazilian PT gave rise to attempts to repeat these two experiences. We are for building big mass revolutionary parties, but there are countless different variants possible for getting there.” (emphasis added).

It enumerated the different options chosen by our organizations at the time:

The emergence of a mass workers’ party like the PT made possible the growth of a revolutionary Marxist current within it that works in the most loyal possible way to build it. …

The Mexican PRT has basically developed as an independent revolutionary party with mass influence. Before the emergence of neo-Cardenism, we were close to obtaining the convergence of the bulk of the revolutionary left around the PRT. …

Entering revolutionary organizations already existing or in formation. This is the path followed by our Colombian section. Our comrades went into A Luchar on the basis of political agreement, basically around the situation in Colombia. …

Participation in a revolutionary political front while maintaining an independent existence. At this level, the experience of our Uruguayan comrades in forming the MPP through the convergence of several currents - the MLN-Tupamaros, the PVP, the MRO and good section of independent individuals - is very important. …

3.2 The type of political instrument necessary changes as the situation changes

Role and party-building tasks of the Fourth International (2018)

https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/511/3

5. Different paths to the same objective, breaks and bifurcations

As we reiterated in these different resolutions [on Building the FI], the decision about which political instrument fits this definition in any particular country at any particular time has to be based on a concrete understanding of the situation - the dynamics, the existing forces. No recipe from outside with whatever label can replace that understanding of the actual situation.

Because the usefulness of a political instrument can only be determined by this understanding it follows that the type of political instrument necessary changes as the situation changes. The best scenario is that the instrument we are involved in building changes in tune with the changing needs - therefore we fight to develop the political basis and programme of the parties of which we are part so that they do so.

But it may be the case that it does not, indeed that it betrays what is necessary. In that case we have to be prepared to break and form a new instrument when we judge that we have lost the political battle. The risk of failure is always present in any political choice.

However, this does not mean that the previous choice was wrong (we also know that parties that proclaimed themselves to be based on the full programme of the Bolshevik revolution betrayed/ became reformist etc). We have to assess whether at the point in time that they were formed and in their first (more or less long) period they had a positive effect on the national situation.

Therefore while we may judge the evolution of the Brazilian PT, or Rifondazione in Italy, as in the end leading nowhere this not mean that we were wrong to participate in them or that at some point (for a shorter or longer period) they were not a positive expression of the aspirations of those desiring systemic change or were not able to achieve concrete gains.

It may also be the case that very rapidly it becomes obvious that the political instrument is a transitional one and its goal must be to wage the battle to create a new political party.

Because we say that the nature of the political instrument necessary evolves with the situation, we know that when the revolution is on the horizon we will need a party capable of understanding and seizing that opportunity. However ,we know that proclaiming the revolutionary party today does not necessarily/in most cases lead to fulfilling the criteria we give for being useful to the class struggle.

This is not to say that we cannot point to experiences in which parties that openly characterized themselves as revolutionary had a real impact: the US SWP in the anti-war movement, the French LCR, or from outside our movement the British SWP with its launching of the Anti-Nazi League in the 1970s. However their impact was the product of a particular political situation and can only be understood in that context. Moreover, their impact was still moderate and these parties did not achieve a critical weight in the political life of their countries – with the exception of the LCR through the two Besancenot campaigns in 2002 and 2007, during the last decade of its existence.