“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 Mexican Question

The International Conference, having read the documents and statements of the former LCI (Galicia group) [Liga Comunista Internacionalista], and the decision of the Pan American Preconference at New York, and having heard the report of the U. S. delegation to Mexico, declares:
That it endorses the recommendation of the All-American Conference regarding the reorganization of the group formerly led by Galicia and Fernandez (LCI of Mexico) and takes no responsibility for the previous policy and attitude of this group.
The conference is obliged to adopt this resolution in view of the false policy of the leadership of the former LCI of Mexico. This policy, for which the principal responsibility falls on Comrades Galicia and Fernandez, brought the greatest discredit upon the Fourth International in Mexico and prevented a healthy development.
Under the guidance of its former leaders, the organization pursued a “third period” policy in the trade union field, which resulted in the split in the building trades union movement, and the creation of an “independent” and “red” trade union composed merely of League members isolated from the masses.
In the struggle against the high cost of living, the League issued irresponsible and adventuristic slogans, not only calling for a “general strike” but also for “sabotage” and “direct action.”
In the struggle against foreign imperialism in Mexico, the leadership of the LCI (Galicia group), instead of emphasizing above all in its agitation the struggle against the American and British bandits, emphasized rather the bourgeois nationalist Cardenas regime, attacking it in a way that was one sided, sectarian, and, in the given circumstances, objectively reactionary. The clinching proof of the irresponsibility of the Galicia leadership was given several days prior to the arrival of the U. S. delegation in Mexico, when this leadership induced the members of the organization to vote the dissolution of the League, thus liquidating the Mexican section of the International. The subsequent decision no less frivolous than the first to reconstitute the League, can be regarded not as a responsible decision, but rather as a maneuver aimed at preventing criticism and serious efforts to reconstruct the movement of the Fourth International in Mexico on a healthy and solid basis.
With the above indicated purpose in mind, the International Conference mandates Comrade C. to continue his efforts, under the direct supervision of the International Subsecretariat, to facilitate the reorganization of the Mexican section of the Fourth International.
The International Conference cordially invites all former and present comrades of the LCI to tighten up their ranks in the Fourth International and its reorganized Mexican section, on the basis of accepting the decisions of the conference and the discipline of the Fourth International.
The International Conference further declares that, regarding the factional struggle, devoid of principle and of political significance, carried on between Comrades Galicia and 0. Fernandez, these two comrades may be admitted to membership in the ranks of the reorganized section only on condition that for a period of one year they shall not occupy any leading post in the organization. The new executive committee of the organization should be composed, above all, of serious and experienced proletarian elements.
Concerning the case of Comrade Diego Rivera, the International Conference further declares that in view of the difficulties that have arisen in the past with this comrade in the internal relationships of the Mexican section, he shall not form part of the reconstituted organization, but that his work and activity for the Fourth International shall remain under the direct control of the International Subsecretariat.