“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-Founding Conference of the Fourth International-1938

 

 
Markin comment (repost from September 2010 slightly edited):

Several years ago, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call issued during the presidency of the late Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must have been something in the air at the time (maybe caused by these global climatic changes that are hazarding our collective future) because I had  also seen a spade of then recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looked very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course in the 21^st century, after over one hundred and fifty years of attempts to create adequate international working-class organizations, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) was appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward

The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.

With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward. 
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Founding Conference of the

Fourth International

1938

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On The Greek Question

On the basis of the December 1937 resolution of the IS and of previous resolutions concerning the movement of the Fourth International in Greece, the International Conference states:

1. That the unification of the United Internationalist Communist Organization with the International Communist League is necessary because the divergences which at present separate these two groups (the present situation in Greece, the question of Archio-Marxism), while they require a serious discussion before the international organization, do not justify continuing the separation.
2. The unification should be brought about on the basis of acceptance of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International, and of its statutes.
3. The two groups shall fuse immediately, combining themselves in a new organization under the name “Revolutionary Socialist Organization (Greek Section of the Fourth International).”
4. The new organization will have a new newspaper under a new title.
5. A provisional leadership, on a basis of parity, shall be formed, its composition to be sanctioned by the IS.
6. Those members of the two groups who are abroad shall constitute a commission whose role shall be to aid the Greek section politically and materially.
7. This commission, together with the leadership in Greece, shall prepare, with the least possible delay, a convention of the new organization, preceded by a discussion before the international organization. This convention will draw up the political line of the organization within the framework of the principles of the Fourth International, and shall elect the new leadership on a proportional basis.
8. Until the national convention, in case of divergences about what policy to support, the IS shall decide.
9. An international bulletin on the Greek question shall be brought out by the Greek Commission abroad, with all the documents of both tendencies.
This resolution, presented by the representatives of the two organizations after a preliminary agreement between them, and after the labors of the Greek Commission, was unanimously adopted by the International Conference.

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