Adopted by the Congress to Reconstitute the International Trotskyist Opposition
29 October 2022
The Movement for the Refoundation of the Fourth International — later, with the Buenos Aires Congress of 2004, the Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International — was born in 1997 around the “Genova Appeal” from the aggregation of the ITO, the Partido Obrero (PO) of Argentina and the Latin American organizations connected to it (in the first place, the Partido da Causa Operária [PCO] of Brazil and the Partido de los Trabajadores [PT] of Uruguay), and the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece. It was later joined by the Revolutionary Workers Party (DIP) of Turkey and the small Marxist Workers League of Finland. For the ITO, this was a matter of concretizing the method of revolutionary regroupment: a regroupment based on common principles, broad but delimiting, around which to unite all the forces that share them. The same Leninist method with which the communist Third International and the original Fourth International were built.
The 1997 Genova Appeal in fact indicated as the basis of regroupment not the history or the specific analyses of this or that organization but four common programmatic lines: class independence, against any policy of the Popular Front; the perspective of the proletarian dictatorship as the power of workers’ councils, against any illusion in “progressive democracy” or adaptation to bureaucratic regimes; the centrality in political intervention of the Transitional Program, against any minimalist retreat; the need to rebuild the Fourth International on these foundations, as a world party of socialist revolution, against any federalist or national-Trotskyist vision. The fact that Trotskyist organizations of different histories and origins were united on this basis represented a counter-tendency to the dynamics of fragmentation of the faction Internationals, built around the tradition of a mother ship. A dynamic unfortunately historically dominant in the anti-Pabloite international camp.
In this framework, the ITO decided to dissolve itself at its 2004 international congress. Not a retreat, but an investment in a broader revolutionary regroupment in the direction of the refoundation of the Fourth International.
The CRFI did not develop its positive potential. Contrary to the commitments made at the 2004 Buenos Aires congress, the PO’s altamirista leadership (altamirista from Jorge Altamira, its principal leader) blocked the development of the CRFI on a democratic-centralist basis, opposing the convening of the second congress, and, more generally, progressively impeding even democratic discussion among the organizations and militants of the CRFI (circulation and translation of documents, confrontation of real political positions without upheavals, relations of mutual respect). In fact, the CRFI was overwhelmed by a self-centered federalist practice around a dominant national section and its principal and dominant leader.
Our current (the PCL and the former ITO) not only never accepted this drift but openly opposed it with determination, calling for the convening of the second congress of the CRFI, the recovery of the essential perspective of international democratic-centralism, the return to correct relations. Presenting declarations and texts on this in all the meetings of the CRFI bodies and denouncing Jorge Altamira’s “anarcho-Bonapartist” conduct without fear or moderation.
The Greek section (EEK) and the Turkish section (DIP), during a certain phase, partially supported the PCL requests, in particular for the convening of the second congress. But the rigid unwillingness of Jorge Altamira, and indeed the dramatics of the attack he made on our party, even using blatant falsifications, led them first to retreat, then to subordinate themselves to the PO leadership. Until the administrative “expulsion” of the PCL from the CRFI (2017) by the altamirista PO alone, while the other organizations declared themselves against it, but did nothing to really oppose.
The PCL’s long stay in the CRFI, despite its progressive paralysis and the gravity of Jorge Altamira’s Bonapartist twists, was determined by three factors, combined: 1) our desire to avoid the logic of splitting and fragmentation of the only aggregation born of a real process of revolutionary regroupment; 2) our search for every possible way to save it; and 3) the continuing character of the PO as a consistently Trotskyist organization on the level of program and intervention in the class struggle, combined with the consistency of its forces and the potential importance of its role in the refoundation of the Fourth International. The recent split of the PO carried out by Jorge Altamira, and the consequent disintegration of the CRFI, confirm the personalistic nature of the previous leadership of the PO and the CRFI, which the PCL denounced and opposed. But at the same time the ability of the PO to withstand the split, retaining the vast majority of its forces and relaunching its initiative in Argentina, and the electoral success of the Argentine Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores – Unidad (FIT-U) is a reflection of the strength and resilience of the PO. The FIT includes, besides the PO, the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) and Izquierda Socialista (IS), as well as the Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores (MST).
The failure of the CRFI experience has not blocked our international initiative.
On the basis of the resolutions of the Third and Fourth Congresses of the PCL and of its 2019 International Conference — and on the basis of consultation with former ITO comrades outside Italy — the international initiative of our current has developed in multiple directions, in relation to new events that have occurred in the camp of the international Trotskyist movement, and in continuity with the policy of revolutionary regroupment, in particular.
- The PCL drew up a critical balance sheet of the experience of the CRFI and the responsibilities of Jorge Altamira by sending our polemical text addressed to all the organizations of the CRFI and to the widest audience of their militants. In parallel, developing a strong polemic with the DIP for its capitulation to the antidemocratic methods of Altamira, and also for the recent evolution of its positions in a “semi-campist” direction with regard to Russia and China and the international conflicts among the powers.
- The PCL met in Paris with the international leader of the Fracción Trotskista por la Cuarta Internacional (FT-CI) and of the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) of Argentina responsible for Europe (Juan Chingo) to verify the reliability of the international appeal put forward by the FT in 2013 and then renewed in 2016, formally addressed to the organizations of the Argentine FIT, the CRFI, and the left opposition in the USFI, for the creation of an international Movement for the Socialist Revolution (Fourth International). The verification was negative. The meeting showed no real will on the part of the FT to follow up on its own appeal, reducing it to one of many propagandistic maneuvers by this international faction. A subsequent letter from the PCL to the FT, formalizing our criticism and proposing a dialogue, received no response. Overall, the FT confirms its profile as a self-centered international faction. The split of its supporters from the PCL in 2017 and then the recent split of its French section from the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), in order to prevent the possible conquest of the majority of the NPA by the ensemble of left-wing oppositions present within it, confirms this self-centered, sectarian character. This is also accompanied by an obvious turn to the right, with the theoretical and strategic acquisition of a borrowed and largely bogus Gramscianism and a democratism expressed by the assertion in every country of the world, regardless of the situation, of a Constituent Assembly as the central demand. In any case, beyond the aforementioned limits and certain specific positions that are unacceptable, the FT continues to place itself on the ground of consistent Trotskyism, and therefore to be part of a wider process of regroupment aimed at the refoundation of the revolutionary International.
- The PCL met in Rome with the principal international leader of the Unidad Internacional de los Trabajadores – Cuarta Internacional (UIT) (Miguel Sorans), who was later a guest, with others, at the PCL international conference in 2019. The meeting confirmed the identification of the UIT with its own orthodox Morenoist tradition as the founding principle of the current. This emerged clearly from comrade Sorans’s confirmation and explicit defense of all the international choices made by Nahuel Moreno, including support for Batista against Castro. Beyond the merit of these positions, this is the logic of an international faction. This does not preclude the possible involvement of the UIT in a broader process of refounding the revolutionary International. But the UIT cannot be the instrument of international revolutionary regroupment and, therefore, our international tendency of reference.
- On the occasion of the 2019 PCL international conference we hosted a delegation of the small group of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), which revealed itself to be an ultra-sectarian organization on the ground of the refoundation of the revolutionary International, only interested in winning individuals from other formations. Its recent taking of reactionary positions on the issue of the pandemic, moreover taken as a line of demarcation, deprives this group of any interest. This goes beyond its correct characterization of Russia and China as imperialist countries, and the positiveness of some theoretical contributions in this regard.
- Supporters of the ITO perspective in Europe outside Italy and in the United States have assisted the regroupment efforts of the PCL and, in addition to their national work, have divided labor to maintain and develop international relationships to strengthen the ITO current and its ability to contribute to the refoundation of the revolutionary International. These include relationships with comrades in Denmark, Britain, Scotland, Ireland, the US, Mexico, and India.
In this general framework, the international initiative of the PCL was mainly directed toward the internal opposition in the USFI, recently configured as the Tendency for a Revolutionary International (TRI), and in the last phase toward a resumption of contact with the PO, after the split of Altamira and the disintegration of the CRFI.
The comrades of the PCL and of the former ITO participated in five international summer camps of the USFI left opposition, accompanied on each occasion by meetings with the relevant leadership groups. On the mandate of the PCL international conference, and in consultation with the other leaders of the former ITO, we have proposed to the TRI the opening of a process of international unification on a democratic-centralist basis, on the condition that the new international faction is not and does not appear to be a component of the USFI. The answer was negative, with the argument — objectively unfounded — of insufficient political clarification between the respective organizations. The counterproposal the TRI leaders advanced to us is that of formalizing a “fraternal and privileged relationship,” with periodic meetings and common initiatives. A proposal accepted by us, as an inferior solution, in order to preserve our relationship with the TRI, but which obviously implies the full autonomy of our international initiative, and the continuing of our battle for international democratic-centralism.
After the split of Jorge Altamira, we persistently sought a resumption of contact with the PO and the reopening of a discussion. At first, we hypothesized a conference to refound the CRFI with the elimination of arbitrary “expulsions” and the participation on a democratic basis of all those involved. At the same time, proposing the involvement of the TRI in this wider regroupment process. Having verified the unwillingness of the PO, the disintegration of the CRFI, the semi-campist drift of some of its components (EEK and DIP), we abandoned this proposal, continuing, however, to seek an opportunity for a meeting for clarification with the PO.
The meeting was held in Buenos Aires in February 2022. An important opportunity for valuable political discussion on the analysis of the world situation, in particular, on the decisive point of the nature of China and Russia, and at the same time for verifying the readiness of the PO, in the new situation, to resume an international initiative on the ground of the refoundation of the revolutionary International. Unfortunately, the discussion showed that there remain important differences on central aspects of the world situation and, on the PO’s side, lack of a strategic vision on the refoundation of the revolutionary International. However, the leading group of the PO, present at the meeting at the highest levels, reserved responding to three hypotheses we suggested until after discussion in the Central Committee. Our three hypotheses, which are not necessarily alternatives, were: 1) an international regroupment initiative promoted by the Partido Obrero, aimed at the various organizations of consistent Trotskyism, with which our party could join; 2) a declaration of fraternal political relations between our organizations; 3) the development of a discussion among our parties on the points of difference that emerged. Still reiterating that without a general agreement on the imperialist nature of China and Russia it would be impossible for us to pose the question of unification in the same international faction.
At the same time, we began a political discussion with the Nuevo MAS, having discovered that it is not an organizational continuity of the old MAS, but rather an organization that, although composed of comrades certainly coming from that tradition (old MAS and PTS), was established at the beginning of the 2000s, and since 2004 has publicly declared its break with the morenista tradition. An organization that on the question of the nature of Russia and China has expressed a position that fully corresponds to ours. However, the discussion showed a substantial closure of this organization to the development of the exchange, which also had been agreed upon, revealing an essentially self-preserving and sectarian approach.
A unification of consistent Trotskyism in Argentina, of forces both inside and outside the FIT, into the same revolutionary party, on the basis of democratic-centralism, could give an extraordinary impulse to the refoundation of the revolutionary International in the world. But this implies an assumption of responsibility on the part of the organizations ready to honestly support this perspective. A fight probably destined to clash with the sectarianism and opportunism of other parties, but methodologically necessary to indicate the perspective of the refoundation of the revolutionary International (mass work, but also splits and fusions, first of all in organizations that refer to Trotskyism), and to try to attract important sectors of other parties, even on the basis of those parties’ rejection of revolutionary regroupment.
Our international initiative, in any case, has maintained and maintains the red thread of activity to regroup, on a democratic-centralist basis, all the consistently revolutionary Marxist organizations. Holding firm the programmatic and principled bar and at the same time opposing all the logics of international faction and/or national Trotskyism, which in different forms continue to mark the life of the revolutionary movement, as one of the aspects of its crisis.
The reconstitution of the ITO, after the disintegration of the CRFI and the unwillingness of the TRI to advance toward a democratic-centralist unification, is a function of this work of international regroupment, as it was before its dissolution. In the overall context of the international Trotskyist movement, which, compared with twenty years ago, has seen in general an expansion of the camp of consistent Trotskyism, but also more chronic internal factionalism. Therefore, today, even more than twenty years ago, the ITO sets itself the task to contribute to the development of the policy of revolutionary regroupment of forces for the refoundation of the revolutionary International.