Fightback

[Cheung Mo]

No wonder these wannabe-Trotskyists are not part of the Fourth International.

http://www.marxist.ca/content/blogcategory/16/47/

Too bad the Socialist Equality Party (Trotsky's Canadian heir) only exists on paper: WSWS and the Fourth International have some excellent analysis on Canadian politics and the need for revolutionary change.

[AmerGuerilla]

Right now the SEP is mobilizing students and the working class through the International Students for Social Equality. I encourage all students to look into this you'd be surprised by the amount of people will probably be interested.

[RNK]

So essentially, it's a mouthpiece for NDP's left wing?

[RedLenin]

Fightback is the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency. The IMT utilizes the tactic of entryism into trade unions and workers parties in order to propogate socialist ideas and win over the rank-and-file. The NDP has links to the trade unions in Canada and is the closest thing to a workers party. Fightback uses entryism into the NDP as a tactic. I would also like to point out that the IMT does not only use entryism, it uses other tactics as well.

As far as the program goes, those are merely transitional slogans. Slogans that act as a bridge between the material conditions of today and the socialist revolution of tomorrow. The slogans act to undermine the logic of capitalism and serve as a bridge between today and the future revolution. The IMT is a revolutionary marxist organization and it stands in the tradition of Bolshevism. The tactic of entryism, which is simply going where the masses of workers are, was advocated by Lenin and Trotsky.

As for the Fourth International, it ceased to be a legitimate international after 1945. The FI drew completely incorrect conclusions after World War 2 and ceased to be the legimitate continuation of Bolshevism, in my opinion and the opinion of the IMT. The IMT has it's roots in the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Militant Tendency in Britain, and is based on the ideas of Ted Grant. Fightback is merely it's Canadian section.

[Cheung Mo]

Could you tell me more about the differing conclusions that the International Marxist Tendency and the Fourth Internationa drew from the war?

[RedLenin]

Yes. Without Trotsky's leadership, it happened that the Fourth International was completely unable to come to terms with the changing world situation. They made a number of mistakes. They made the mistake of thinking that there was no way that capitalism would ever again experience a boom after World War 2. They thought revolution was "right around the corner". Then they decided that the working class in Europe had become "bourgeoisified", ironically in the same year as the 1968 general strikes in France. The FI's mistakes did not stop there. They considered some of the regimes in Eastern Europe to be "healthy workers states", etc. The Fourth International was degenerated by 1945. The only section of the FI to have a real marxist perspective, which was later verified by actual events, was the British Revolutionary Communist Party, led by Ted Grant.

The IMT claims adherence to the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and Ted Grant. We feel that Ted Grant continued genuine Marxism and Bolshevism past the degeneration of the Fourth International. To read more on the mistakes of the late Fourth International and on the positions of the IMT, read...

A Brief History of the International Marxist Tendency (http://www.marxist.com/history-marxist-tendency.htm)

And for works by Ted Grant, check out...

Ted Grant Internet Archive (http://www.tedgrant.org)

[Louis Pio]

Since Red Lenin touched upon the other points quite well I will not go into them.

Just have a small thing in Cheung Mo's post I find quite funny. How is it that WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party should be Trotsky's heirs? The international of the Socialist Equality Party is quite small and can in no way be seen as the direct decendent of the original 4. International, it's just one of many groups that claims that.
I just feel it would be a bit wise for Cheung Mo to check up on the history, the Socialist Equality Party's international is more founded on the person of Gerry Healy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Healy), a person well known for using gangster methods in his political work, something the Socialist Equality Party themselves are quite wellknown for at least in the USA. A thing that has been discussed on this side before
Here: Former discussion of their methods (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=60644)

[Question everything]

Did they just call the NDP right wing? :wacko:

[Louis Pio]

Did they just call the NDP right wing?

Who?
I don't take your referring to Fightback, that would be a bit strange

[bezdomni]

Without Trotsky's leadership, it happened that the Fourth International was completely unable to come to terms with the changing world situation.

Trotsky's line (and obviously, the line of many Trotskyists) is too often: "Nothing is done properly without Trotsky's leadership."

[Cheung Mo]

I've been reading through the FAQ at New Youth (The youth section of the IMT) and I've been learning a lot. But can you still agree that WSWS has some excellent current affairs analysis throughout the world? Their section on Quebec has the best analysis of modern Quebec political history that I've ever read and -- along with much of the discussion I've had here with RNK -- forms the basis for many of my current opinions on Quebec sovereignty, bourgeois nationalism in general, and a host of miscellaneous topics relevant to Canadian and global politics. But they do seem dirty on some fronts now, and I can see how their hard line against the NDP can alienate them from the proletarian quite qckly, even if I'm beginning share their opinion that any party with the gall to support shit like NATO and NOARD and to give such pitiful and shallow reasons for opposing our involvement in imperialist wars (when they even have the guts to truly oppose it) is probably beyond being reformed, even if a substantial proportion of members and supporters may wish for a far more radical line...But it seems the party is forever geared towards progressive interests within the bourgeoisie who identify more strongly with Bill Clinton and Pierre Trudeau than with Hugo Chavez...I used to believe the progresive bourgeois lines...I started as one here, I even renewed my NDP membership last year, but I finally realised that I was just playing into the noblesse oblige Keynesian trap...I don't want to perpetuate an unsustainable welfare state and call it socialism...I don't want to be like Ms. Luxemburg's early Christians and divide equally the profits of the oppressed alien...Already, we are seeing this unsustainable bourgeois appartus collapse on itself, and when "commies" (i.e. Bourgeois patsies who range in ideology from Paul Martin to Bernie Sanders) take the fall, we may see the most brutal, demoralising, reactionary brand of capitalism ever conceived, and unless revolution spreads throughout Latin America, there will not be a alternative anywhere in the world! We will be in the Friedmanite version of Orwell's Stalinist Hell.

[aminkibata]

burst out brutality because there is no way to peace despite peace is the way