Alejandro Bodart
The Third World Congress of the International Socialist League has just ended. The result exceeded all expectations with great success. Since its founding in 2019, the ISL has continued to grow and has spread to all continents in its five years of existence. At this Congress, the ISL has taken a huge leap forward, establishing its presence in most of the central countries. It has almost doubled the number of countries where the ISL is present, with different development, compared to the previous Congress held in Barcelona. The Congress featured the participation of 72 delegates from 38 countries and 5 invited organizations. We held debates and adopted resolutions which we will soon share with the internationalist activist community.
More than 70 comrades from different regions of the planet gathered in the European Side of Istanbul, the only city in the world built on two continents and the ancient capital of three empires, steeped in culture and millennial history.
In early December, the first delegations began arriving at the venue which had been specially prepared to host the Congress. The Turkish authorities’ refusal to grant visas to our African comrades made it impossible for several delegates from Kenya and other countries in the region to attend, although they still greatly contributed online. However, choosing this location allowed delegations from some South Asian and other Middle Eastern countries to attend in person, which would have been almost impossible elsewhere in the world.
Due to Putin and Lukashenko repressive regimes, which force the left to operate underground, delegations from Russia and Belarus were unable to participate as well. The war also forced our Ukrainian comrades to participate online, as they were unable to leave the country due to current legislation. The delegations that arrived from South America and Mesoamerica, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Eastern and Central Europe, and guests from Oceania and other regions, gathered with new members of our current from the United States, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Panama, and participants from Cuba, Palestine, and Ecuador, among many others.
All debates during the six days of Congress sessions, from early morning until late at night, were devoted to politically preparing our parties to intervene in the struggles against the offensive that imperialism and the far right are unleashing against workers and peoples around the world. From Palestine to Ukraine, through the rebellions that took place in several countries in Latin America, East Asia, and Africa, to the large mobilizations in the United States and Europe, all were part of our Congress, with delegations from parties and groups that have been actively involved in most of these processes.
Socialism or Barbarism, the challenge of this stage
“Since 2008, the crisis of capitalism and its devastating consequences for humanity and nature have deepened. The constant deterioration of workers’ living standards and the attack on the social and democratic rights of peoples is combined with an unprecedented advance in the destruction of the environment. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and attacks on migrants are on the rise. Wars, pandemics, genocides, and sectarian disputes have returned. The far right, repression, and the militarization of nations are being promoted from the spheres of power in several countries. These are the only solutions offered to us by the bourgeoisie and imperialism. If we do not stop them as soon as possible, they will lead us to barbarism and then to extinction. Only workers at the forefront of a national, regional, and global revolution against this rotten system and a program that leads us to socialism can prevent this outcome. Socialism or Barbarism and the regrouping of revolutionaries are our banners of struggle and organization…” Thus begins the approved document on the world situation.
To face the new global situation of growing asymmetrical polarization between the rising far right and the resistance of a mass movement that fights with tied hands due to the historic crisis of revolutionary leadership, the Congress was a school of revolutionary theory, politics, and practice.
- It approved a document on the current situation and a programmatic manifesto that is a fundamental contribution to activists that aim to confront and defeat capitalism in order to achieve a society without oppression or exploitation, allowing humanity to enjoy the beauty of life in peace and harmony with nature.
- It produced material to understand the root causes of the global economic crisis and a Marxist response to it.
- It discussed the importance of national self-determination struggles at the present time and a revolutionary response to the Palestinian genocide, the war in Ukraine, the uprisings in Kashmir, the struggle of the Sahrawi people, and a campaign against US interference and military threats in Venezuela and the Caribbean.
- It deepened its analysis of the socio-environmental crisis and the gender issue, elaborating on proposals to confront ecocide and the reactionary offensive of the far right against women and LGBTIQ+ community.
- It addressed in depth, based on three alternative documents, the electoral question, the tactics, and the politics that revolutionaries must pursue in this century.
- It weighed up the different experiences of broad anti-capitalist formations that have taken place so far this century and set parameters for intervening in similar processes that are developing again in different parts of the world.
A call to regroup revolutionaries
At the end of the Congress, we discussed and drafted a call to regroup the revolutionary forces that act scattered in an increasingly turbulent world. This initiative will include a series of interviews with those forces with which we have had important points of agreement in the main processes of the class struggle and a similar analysis of the confrontation between the United States, the rest of Western imperialism, and the new imperialisms that dispute hegemony. We will continue to do so with those who are willing to engage in a loyal and constructive debate, regardless of the differences we may have, which would be important to discuss openly and without preconceptions.
For our part, we will make available the experience we have gained through the multiple components of the ISL, which, with patience and determination, have achieved sustained progress since our founding to date. In just a few years, we have overcome our initial peripheral presence to become a current embedded not only in the semi-colonial world, but also in more developed and imperialist countries while other currents of Trotskyism unfortunately imploded, split, and regressed or, at best, are stagnant.
Many of the setbacks we find in building our organizations are due to objective causes that we cannot undermine, among which the backwardness of our class consciousness and the structural changes that have been taking place since the 1990s stand out. But they also emerge due to the short-sightedness expressed in the refusal to leave behind models that, although they may have been useful in the past, have proven to fail in order to act in present times.
Building a new international strong enough to become a pole that helps build solid national vanguard parties, influences the course of the struggles that are developing, and can successfully challenge the reformist forces for leadership is an urgent necessity. This will only be possible if we leave behind sectarian self-proclamation, dogmatism, and skepticism, which have led multiple organizations to opportunism.
If we revolutionaries become aware of our responsibility and make every effort to join forces and avoid new divisions, we can move forward. If we act together to take advantage of the opportunities and the crisis that is eating away progressive forces, social democracy, and the remnants of Stalinism, and if we learn to coexist among those of us who come from different experiences, with the goal of moving toward a new tradition, listening and learning from each other, then we can achieve it. If we recover a healthy democratic centralism, where disagreement is not a cause for splitting but a contribution to collective elaboration, it will be possible to reverse this disaggregation.
At this Congress, the ISL has incorporated organizations with which unity was unthinkable until very recently. We are moving forward with the forces of the International Trotskyist Opposition and the various components of the League for the Fifth International. We are working with the MAS in Portugal and comrades from different backgrounds in the United States, and we are very close to the MRT in Ecuador. We have not only connected with organizations and militants who claim to be Trotskyists, but also with cadres and activists who come from the crisis of the communist parties in Africa, as we had previously done with young people in Lebanon.
A bold and offensive organization
As proposed by the voted leadership, the Congress unanimously voted for a larger International Executive Committee that is more representative of the growth of the ISL, and for a group of comrades to deal with cases that threaten our proletarian and party morale.
The Congress also voted for a commission to advance the construction of Youth in each of our countries, commissions to continue developing and participating in socio-environmental and gender struggles, a bold plan for training and propaganda, including youth camps on different continents, and regular meetings of our forces in Europe and other regions to act in unison in continental processes.
We are convinced that these resolutions and this organizational structure, together with campaigns and initiatives to appropriately answer to class struggle, will allow us to continue advancing in the coming period.