Fifth International

I was wondering what everyone's opinion was on the Fifth International. I've been looking into the different groups and so far, the Fifth International really stands out to me. So what do you guys think of it?

I find the premise itself to be very complicated. Chavez ins't exactly a communist, he is leftist but not communist.
Don't get me wrong I am not one of those anti-Chavez people. But as a marxist I have to disagree with him on a number of points. He is far more radical than the average reformist ruler and is helping develop and improve the living conditions in Venezuela but that is it.

Btw, even if the premise wasn't centered on him I'd still be skeptic. We probably won't see any really really good international group until a new succesful socialist revolution happens.

Yeah, I wasn't aware when I made this post about how involved Chavez' role in the whole thing, which makes me skeptical as well. I do have to say though, their platform is highly agreeable. The ICL also looks really good to me too.

Which fifth international? There is a "League for a Fifth International" and Chavez' call he made a few years ago to start one (which led to nothing).

The former is a crisis-ridden group that has existed for the past 40-odd years and originates from the British SWP. In 2006 it had a split in the biggest part of its "international", in the UK, whereby the older members were mostly expelled, about a third or so of the membership at the time or about 30 people. These went on to form Permanent Revolution. Last year they also had a split in Austria, which went on to form the Revolutionary Communist Organisation for Freedom and just a few months ago, their UK section again lost quite a few (now mostly youth) members which seem to dissolve themselves into the Anti-Capitalist Initiative

Can't we all just get along?

Why is a new international "needed"?

Dude look up The 4th International (La Verte). The 5th International call seemed like an opportunist attempt to seem more radical than he actually was. And if it was formed, I can't see it growing to be anything larger than a castroist-chavezista cheerleading group, like the SWP.

The first three internationals originated from a combination of working class struggle internationally as well as mass based parties within the respective working classes well at least the CP's in the 3rd international had a mass base ie France and Germany. Problem with the 4th it developed during a period of counter revolution where the working class was decimated. The 4th international was a premature response to a deep crisis within the working class and inevitably failed to call for a 5th is just as premature.

The 4th was formed once the Stalinists denied the strategy of United Frontism against fascism, which allowed the Bolsheviks in 1917 to grow in a "democratic," non Neo-Czarist country. It should of been common sense to ally with other socialists against Fascism, but the CPs of those days were run by opportunists.

Its the factionalism that gets to me.

I've made my point that all socialist/communists and even anarchists (perhaps) should reunite to achieve our goals (the revolution and so forth).

We should then let the workers decide which party should lead them in the soviets.

However, I like and share the fire of the Fifth International. While the revolution cannot be predicted, we can certainly be a pain in the arse of the bourgeoisie and win favour with the proletariat.

Nonetheless, I think I will remain with the USFI. Perhaps even support both?

Even the youth group associated with the League for the Fifth International-Revolution- is rife with struggle.Recently there has emerged in Britain another split.This one is on the basis that the new tendency wanted to more inclusive in their program in order to grow as an organization.Was blatant opportunism since the leaders of the "tendency" left after a couple days of making their tendency announcement but goes to show how deep these leftist sects are crisis ridden.

Dude look up The 4th International (La Verte). The 5th International call seemed like an opportunist attempt to seem more radical than he actually was. And if it was formed, I can't see it growing to be anything larger than a castroist-chavezista cheerleading group, like the SWP.

The First International was an experiment, all tendencies in the movement under one single roof, which didn't work, which is why Marx decided it had to go. The Second International became a dirty word during WWI, the Third because of Stalinism. So we have the Fourth International, the international of revolutionary Marxism today, the Fourth International.

Which collapsed in the 1950s, with almost all of its pieces degenerating into something other than Trotskyism. But Trotskyism is still the revolutionary Marxism today, so the job is to put it back together on the old basis. The only reason for a Fifth International is if you think that now Trotskyism is as dirty a word as Social Democracy or Stalinism.

Now, Chavez thinks exactly that most likely, so from his POV that makes sense. You should only follow his call, that is to say if he's serious about it which he isn't, if you agree with him.

Then there's the "League for a Fifth International" created originally by the Workers Power group, which has gone through a number of splits and seems headed for the graveyard. Their idea was that the Fourth International had become a dirty word to the world proletariat ... due to doings in Bolivia in 1953 that nobody outside of Bolivia was really aware of, and which various foreign Trotskyists ignorantly went along with. If Bolivian Trotskyists would want to never again call themselves the POR after 1953, that would be reasonable.

But rejecting the "spotless banner" of the Fourth International on that basis was just a bit of market differentiation for the "LFI" so they could stand out from the other semi-Trotskyists out there as a different brand.

The WP actually had a member or two on Yeltsin's barricades in 1992! If there's any pseudo-Trotskyist group that demonstrated once and for all and historically that they had nothing to do with Trotskyism, they're toward the top of the list.

-M.H.-