Declaration of Tasks of the International Trotskyist Opposition

DECLARATION OF TASKS OF THE
INTERNATIONAL TROTSKYIST OPPOSITION

Adopted by the International Coordinating Committee
of the International Trotskyist Opposition
2 November 1992

1. We are at a critical turning point in world history. The fall of the Stalinist regimes, the deepening capitalist economic crisis, the necessity for the capitalists to intensify their attacks on the workers and the oppressed all over the world, the! imperialist drive toward war, the proliferation of civil wars based on national antagonisms, and the other symptoms of capitalist decay confirm the absolute necessity for socialist revolution and the reconstruction of society on a world scale on the basis ! of a planned economy and the rule of the working class.

2. The workers' movement faces this situation in great confusion and disarray. The bourgeoisie was able to stop the prerevolutionary and revolutionary upsurges of the 1970s. The Stalinist and social-democratic parties, the unions, and all the other i! nstitutions of the workers' movement are in crisis. And bourgeois-restorationist governments have been established in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The weight of these defeats, without the existence of a mass revolutionary alternative, has aga! in created a situation in which the confusion and disappointment of the older generation and the inexperience of the younger generation block the forward movement of the working class.

3. Nevertheless, in some sectors of the vanguard of the working class and the oppressed there is a search for a way to overcome the situation. In the younger generation and in the older generation, militants are attempting to understand the reasons f! or the defeats and to develop perspectives for turning the situation in the workers' movement around, building alternative leaderships, and moving forward.

4. This places on the agenda the question of the revolutionary regroupment of these vanguard sectors into national organizations and an international organization on the basis of revolutionary Marxism, starting from the contradictions of the present ! situation, particularly the crisis of and lack of confidence in the old leaderships. This regroupment is needed to create the precondition to utilize the contradictions of imperialist domination, which are not ended but deepened in the present situation, to! lead the workers and the oppressed to the overthrow of world capitalism and the building of a new society.

5. Our objective is to build a mass Fourth International. The problem is that for decades a combination of the objective situation and the crisis and breakup of the Fourth International has blocked the construction of a mass Fourth International. The! crisis of humanity is the crisis of proletarian leadership, and that, in turn, is now in elemental form the crisis of the Fourth International.

6. The task of the vanguard militants who base themselves on a consistently Trotskyist program and policy is to struggle to resolve the crisis of the Fourth International. This crisis includes two elements: political revisionism and organizational di! spersion. The crisis can be resolved only by struggling against both these elements.

7. The purpose of the International Trotskyist Opposition is to struggle on the basis of our program, the "Declaration of Principles of the International Trotskyist Opposition," for the political regeneration and organizational reconstruction of the ! Fourth International. We seek to regroup all the consistent Trotskyists who are in the international organization of which we are part, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), for a struggle against the deepening revisionism of the majori! ty leadership of the USFI.

8. The USFI is not the Fourth International but only a fragment of the Fourth International. It includes less than half the militants who consider themselves Trotskyists. The revisionist and liquidationist drift of its leadership, which has been goin! g on a long time, has been reinforced and accelerated by the 1989 turn in world history. The same historic events have also provoked debates and sometimes crises and splits in other Trotskyist currents, leading to positive as well as negative evolution. We ! must make a concrete analysis and evaluation of the evolution of each of these currents.

9. The International Trotskyist Opposition recognizes that the struggle for the political regeneration and organizational reconstruction of the Fourth International involves all the currents in the world Trotskyist movement. Our perspective is to uni! fy in a common framework all the consistent Trotskyists for a common battle for the Fourth International. In this sense we look not only to political developments within the USFI but also to developments of or inside other Trotskyist trends.

10. As members of the USFI, we will center our activity in the next period inside this organization. In particular, we will prepare ourselves for the struggle around the next World Congress. However, because of the turning point of world history and ! the crisis of the world Trotskyist movement, we will propose that the next World Congress of the USFI call for an international Trotskyist conference open to all Trotskyist currents, within six months. The conference would allow the participating organizati! ons to discuss the crisis of the workers' movement and the crisis of the Fourth International and to try to find political and organizational solutions.

11. The international working class urgently needs an organized political leadership, a world party of socialist revolution. Consistent Trotskyists must struggle in the world Trotskyist movement to build a Fourth International capable of realizing un! der its banner and program the revolutionary regroupment of the vanguard of the working class and the oppressed worldwide. In this way it can play its historic role and become the prospective leadership of the world socialist revolution.