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The dissolution of the ITO into the CRFI necessitates a radical re-launch of this website

Spring 2004. The International Trotskyist Opposition (ITO) was an international organisation dedicated to the reconstruction and political regeneration of the Fourth International established by Trotsky and his supporters in 1938. The political basis of the ITO can be found in the document archive. However, the ITO has now dissolved itself into the sectarian Co-ordinating Committee to Refound the Fourth International (CRFI). The ITO web-sites are therefore closed. But the ideas and political positions of the ITO live on in the consciousness of those who refuse to be dragged down this sectarian path. In the past, the British ITO comrades produced several numbers of a bulletin In Defence of Marxism. This web-site will now re-launch this bulletin in web-based format. It will report on the state of the Trotskyist movement, internationally, and pubish news, views and comment on the tasks of consistent Trotskysists today.

The ITO attempted to intervene into the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) as an oppositional tendency under the name of the International Left Tendency (ILT). This tendency submitted documents to the last three World Congresses (1991, 1995 and 2003), but it became progressively more difficult to do so as the USFI leadership became more and more defensive, obstructive and bureaucratic in its attitude towards us. The ILT documents were circulated in the World Congress bulletin in 1991, but in 1995 they refused to circulate them even though an ILT supporter was a member of the USFI IEC at the time. And by 2003 most of the ILT had been excluded from the USFI. The ILT effectively had to operate as an external tendency. In spite of bureaucratic obstruction, the ILT documents were circulated widely in the USFI sections in 2003 thanks to the development of electronic communication technology: e-mail and the World Wide Web. The USFI leadership was thus powerless to prevent the circulation of the documents--as it had done in 1995. And it is still possible to intervene into the crisis of the USFI (and the other political tendencies originating in Trotsky's Fourth International) circumventing bureaucratic obstruction via the Internet: e-mail, newsgroups and World Wide Web etc.

The ITO may have dissolved itself, but the ILT--its wing in the USFI--has not and it will continue, by whatever means possible, to monitor and intervene into the crisis of the USFI and the other organisations originating in Trotsky's Fourth International. The ITO's new orientation towards the Partido Obrero (PO) of Argentina is motivated by impatience with the USFI. This is a serious error which developed out of frustration with the increasingly obstructive and bureaucratic reaction of the USFI towards the ILT. There is no doubting the fact that there are all kinds of political problems with the USFI. However, it is necessary to maintain a balanced assessment of its political strengths and weaknesses and avoid the kind of ridiculous one-sided characterisations made by the PO. A recent development highlights this point: the USFI has now (January 2005) finally openly criticised its own Brazilian section for participating in the bourgeois Lula government. This is long overdue, of course, and it does not exonerate the USFI leadership's dilatory, diplomatic dithering, but it does call into question the erroneous view that the USFI is beyond redemption or "counterrevolutionary". This kind of vacillation is consistent with centrism not consolidated reformism.

For the past two years, the USFI leadership has been conducting a "discussion" about the Brazilian affair--as though participation in a bourgeois government was some kind of esoteric, academic debating point instead of an open and shut case of class betrayal. Meanwhile, by refusing to immediately condemn DS's actions at the 2003 World Congress, the USFI as a whole has had to accept political responsibility for the neo-liberal economic policy of Lula's government during the past two years. Yet by issuing a clear criticism of DS's participation in the Lula government, the USFI leadership now demonstrates, belatedly, that it is neither consistently reformist nor "counterrevolutionary".

It should be recalled that Trotsky fought long and hard to build the Fourth International. The USFI is actually the organisational continuity of Trotsky's Fourth International--several of the other major Trotskyist tendencies split from it without a struggle--in some cases on the eve of a World Congress (the ICFI in 1953, the Morenoists in 1979) or refused to join or rejoin it when the opportunity existed (the Grantites in 1938, the Healyites, Grantites and Lambertists in 1963). Of course, some Trotskyist tendencies were expelled, e.g the French section in the early 1950s, the Robertson group [now the International Communist League (ICL)] from the US SWP in the 1960s and today the ILT.

The USFI was politically centrist from its inception when it adopted wrong positions on the Cuban revolution which declared it to be a healthy workers' state. The subsequent 1969 Latin American Guevarist guerrilla "turn" also reinforces that characterisation. Healy's ICFI adopted an equally wrong position by declaring that Cuba was "state capitalist". The Robertson group (now the ICL) got the class nature of Cuba right by declaring it a deformed workers' state. And no that does not mean that it follows from this fact that the ICL is worthy of support today. It means only that credit should be given where it is due. It should be remembered that it was the USFI that spawned the ICL. And any present day sectarianism derives ultimately from the political marginalisation which ensued after the proto-ICL was expelled by the SWP/USFI leadership in the 1960s.

Democratic centralism sans frontières

No international Trotskyist tendency today has an internal regime comparable to the genuinely democratic centralist regime of the Bolshevik party during Lenin's life time or the International Left Opposition/Fourth International during Trotsky's lifetime. Those who doubt the reality of this internal democracy should re-read Alexander Rabinowitch's The Bolsheviks Come to Power (1976). This account of the Russian Revolution by a liberal US academic, unconnected with the Marxist movement, concludes that the Bolshevik party was democratic.*

The majority of Trotskyists today have never experienced a genuinely democratic centralist internal regime. The regime they have experienced is closer to the bureaucratic centralism of the Stalinist, social democratic and bourgeois parties. There is absolutely no doubt that all today's Trotskyist organisations have become infected, to one degree or another, with Stalinist organisational methods. The internal regime of the USFI was, historically, closest to the genuine democratic centralism of Trotsky's time. And this was connected to the fact that it was the organisational continuity of Trotsky's Fourth International. It was simply carrying on the traditions that it inherited from Trotsky's time. The USFI has been criticised in the past for being "too democratic" and "faction ridden" by, for example, the Cliffites. The Cliffites have argued that this was why the British International Marxist Group (IMG) collapsed. Meanwhile, the Cliffite's own international organisation, the International Socialist Tendency, has been characterised by a combination of international federalism and tin-pot despotism. The Cliffite organisation in France also collapsed, a while ago, and its remnants are now members of the French section of the USFI--the LCR--which has a "faction ridden" internal regime similar to the IMG. The fact of the matter is that the Bolshevik party was itself frequently "faction ridden". There is nothing wrong with being "faction ridden". The late Duncan Hallas wrote a lot of nonsense about this. Being "faction ridden" is a sign of political health--sharp disagreements are a normal, every day fact of life. And the party must provide for, and institutionalise, the right to internal political struggle, the "free clash of internal tendencies" as Trotsky put it, by allowing proportional representation for factions and tendencies on leading bodies. It is the monolithic intolerant cultism of other Trotskyist organisations which is unhealthy.

Trotsky wrote that the secret of Lenin's success in building the Bolshevik party was his comradely loyalty and political generosity towards his factional opponents, especially in the aftermath of a conference where they had lost the vote. It was his practice to help avoid splits by being overly generous towards them in the allocation of full time posts and positions on the editorial boards of the party publications etc.

However, the USFI's relatively democratic internal regime has been gradually degenerating in recent years. The USFI effectively abandoned international democratic centralism at its 2003 World Congress (although USFI sections still adhere to it on a national basis) and it has renounced its former role as a "world party of socialist revolution"--the phrase used by Trotsky to describe the purpose of the Fourth International. It has renounced the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yet it still calls itself the Fourth International and its internal regime is still more democratic than any other international Trotskyist organisation. Tendencies and factions are tolerated (within certain arbitrary limits decided by the leadership) and their proportional representation on leadership bodies still exists. But the USFI could not handle the criticism of the ILT--the truth was evidently too painful.

By adopting international federalism and renouncing the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletriat, the USFI hopes to make itself more attractive to the youth of today. It is obvious that many of these youth are repelled from Leninism by the profound confusion generated by the sickening crimes and ignominious collapse of Stalinism. But, importantly, they are also repelled by the despotic internal regimes of many Trotskyist organisations today--which are badly infected with methods closer to bureaucratic centralism than democratic centralism. Even some confused Trotskyists, people who should know better, now erroneously identify democratic centralism (and not bureaucratic centralism) as the problem. The Trotskyist movement, internationally, will never succeed in relating to the huge anti-globalisation movement by denying its own historic principles and organisational methodology and re-launching itself as a half-baked, federalist, semi-anarchist NGO. International democratic centralism (along with a firm grounding in Marxism) is an indispensible means of preventing local reformist and chauvinist pressures from poisoning national sections. Democracia Socialista in Brazil is a good, or rather bad, example of this. For almost two years the USFI/DS has been politically responsible for a neo-liberal governmental economic policy. How has this helped win the newly radicalised youth in the anti-globalisation movement to Trotskyism?

*Extract from The Bolsheviks Come to Power

An extract from Rabinowitch's book says of the Bolshevik party in 1917:

"I would emphasise the party's internally relatively democratic, tolerant and decentralised structure and method of operation, as well as its essentially open and mass character--in striking contrast to the traditional Leninist model. [my emphasis--CE]

As we have seen, within the Bolshevik Petrograd organisation at all levels in 1917 there was continuing free and lively discussion and debate over the most basic theoretical and tactical issues. Leaders who differed with the majority were at liberty to fight for their views, and not infrequently Lenin was the loser in these struggles. To guage the importance of this tolerence of differences of opinion and ongoing give and take, it is enough to recall that throughout 1917 many of the Bolsheviks' most important resolutions and public statements were influenced as much by the outlook of the right Bolsheviks as by that of Lenin. In addition, moderate Bolsheviks like Kamenev, Zinoviev, Lunacharsky and Riazanov were among the party's most articulate and respected spokesmen in key public institutions such as the soviets and trades unions.

In 1917 subordinate party bodies like the Petersberg Committee and the Military Organisation were permitted considerable independence and initiative, and their views and criticisms were taken into account in the formation of policy at the highest level. Most important, these lower bodies were able to tailor their tactics and appeals to suit their own particular constituencies and rapidly changing conditions. Vast numbers of new members were recruited into the party, amd they too played a significant role in shaping the Bolsheviks' behaviour. Among these newcomers were many of the leading figures in the October revolution, among them Trotsky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Lunacharsky, and Chudnovsky..."

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