THE SECOND Congress of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI) took place in Munich last month. At the first congress we adopted the Trotskyist Manifesto, the programme of the LRCI. The Second Congress was concerned primarily with discussing the balance sheet of our work, on the basis of this programme, and the tasks that lie ahead of us.
We ratified the entry of Poder Obrero (Bolivia) as a full section of the LRCI. This is a priceless gain, bringing into our ranks a second Latin American section, strengthening our work in the continent. For some time before the Bolivian comrades became full members of the League, they had worked with our section in Peru in the Liaison Committee of Andean Trotskyists (CETA). The work of that organisation will now be expanded and a Latin American Bureau of the LRCI will be established.
Likewise, we welcomed the expansion of the Gruppe Arbeitermacht, through its fusion with a group of LRCI supporters in the ex-GDR. The building of a group in the ex-GDR, in the heat of the revolutionary crisis that preceded the restoration of capitalism, was proof in practice of our commitment to rebuilding a Trotskyist International.
Congress was attended by observers from our fraternal group, Workers Power New Zealand/Aotearoa and by sympathisers based in Madrid. These comrades expressed their commitment to deepening their discussions with the LRCI. In particular the delegate from WPNZ indicated the experience of the congress will bring to a rapid conclusion discussions leading to full membership of the League.
Since the First Congress the world has been turned upside down. For a young tendency like the LRCI to have maintained its programmatic coherence and unity through such a period, when so many other tendencies have split or been plunged into factional warfare, is a tremendous achievement. It is a testimony to our insistence on ensuring that programmatic and methodological agreement preceded the formal adoption of democratic centralist organisation in 1989.
Yet our insistence on clear programmatic agreement also means drawing clear lines of demarcation. And the Congress had to register a break with the US fraternal group (RTT) as a result of sharp differences in analysis and strategy towards the post-August events in the ex-USSR.
The inevitable pressure of time meant that Congress was unable finish its work. Documents on the world situation, on Latin America and on Party Building were discussed and referred to the incoming International Executive of the LRCI for completion. But the adoption of a balance sheet of our past work and a clear perspective for the future—strengthening our Latin American work, expanding our work in Russia, intervening into the crisis of the degenerate Trotskyist fragments, strengthening all of the existing sections of the LRCI—means that the Second Congress completed its most important business.
It set an agenda for our work which will see us grow in size and influence, and ensure that we become ever stronger as an active force seeking to resolve the crisis of proletarian leadership.
As testimony to the work of the LRCI Congress received a report of sales of over 100 copies of the LRCI Russian language journal, Rabochaya Vlast (Workers Power) on the early January Moscow march against price rises.
Long live working class internationalism!
Long live the LRCI!