Signing together the 19th of June international statement “Russian imperialism, get out from Ukraine” amounts to a step forward in the convergence of our two movements.
Everybody knows Marx’s sentence “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs” (in a letter to Bracke on May 5th, 1875). It has often been misunderstood and misused, as if the immediate unity of action is a better option than the discussion on the substance of the program, while Marx wrote this specifically as part of a determined fight that he was waging against Lassalle’s legacy on the Gotha program of the Workers’ Party of Germany.
Confronted with the war in Ukraine as a critical juncture in the world situation, the joint statement differentiates us politically from other political forces, some of which claiming Trotskyism, on the condemnation of the attack of Russian imperialism over Ukraine, on the aims of other imperialisms and of the consequences of that war on the world proletariat. Against the support either to the imperialisms within the NATO or to the Russian imperialism, and against the blissful pacifism that amounts to such a support, this statement amounts to an essential landmark for the workers who are searching for a revolutionary direction.
This is the reason why we propose that the final version be established in English, in Danish and in Italian by the Provisional Committee for the Reconstitution of the International Trotskyist Opposition, and in German, in Spanish, in French, in Russian and in Turkish by the Permanent Revolution Collective.
But this statement’s conclusion goes further:
- Indexation of wages to inflation!
- Workers’ control over the activity of essential services and firms and over the closure of the non-essential ones!
- Expropriation of the capitalist groups!
- Production plan decided by the population with a view to meet the social needs while preserving the environment and the future of humanity!
- Workers’ government based on the workers’ councils, on the destruction of the bourgeois state and the dissolution of the professional armed force, of the police repression forces and of the fascist gangs by armed workers!
- World socialist federation!
Key points of the program and of the need for a workers’ international have already started emerging here.
The Permanent Revolution Collective supports any step forward with the Provisional Committee for the Reconstitution of the International Trotskyist Opposition, like in the substantial discussion on the analysis of the world situation, on the program of the workers’ international and on the principles for its construction. The only way to move towards the merger of our organizations is to discuss seriously, honestly, in starting from our points of agreement, from the problematic or dissenting issues, which include the anti-imperialist united front, the assessment of centrism, or even the possibility of reviving the 4th International. Yet, heading for the merger is also an inspiring hope, a major opportunity to support the perspective of a revolutionary workers’ international which so cruelly misses while imperialism leads ever more quickly humanity to new disasters.
Therefore, the CoReP reiterates its three proposals.
- To convene an international conference together.
- To open a joint internal bulletin for organizing the discussion on the three texts proposed by the PCL (world situation, principles, crisis of the 4th International) and on the CoReP platform.
- To propose, write, discuss and publish, with joint signatures in case of agreement, international statements in all of our languages on significant issues, as we did for Ukraine, which may include the conditions that are made to the refugees and to the migrants, the fight for the right to abortion in the United States, the destruction of the planet by capitalism and the climate warning…
What is at stake is the historical responsibility for our organizations and groups to implement whatever is necessary to make sure that this process coan go forward.