Committee for a Workers' International ( CWI ) is an international political association. It has sections in 40 countries, including the Socialist Party in England and Wales, the Socialist Party in Ireland , the Democratic Socialist Movement - the name of the sections in South Africa and Nigeria , groups using the name "Socialist Alternative" in Russia , USA , Canada , New Zealand , Portugal and Germany . It is the second largest international Trotskyist organization after the Reunited Fourth International .
Workers International Committee | |
---|---|
Committee for a Workers' International | |
Leader | Peter Taaf , Joe Higgins |
Established | 1974 |
Headquarters | London , UK |
Ideology | Marxism , Trotskyism , democratic socialism |
Site | socialistworld.net |
Content
History
In 1964-1965, a series of conflicts occurred between the leadership of the Fourth International and its British section, the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL). The differences concerned, first of all, the assessment of the Chinese revolution, the Sino-Soviet confrontation, the situation in Cuba , the tactics of guerilla and the colonial revolution. In addition, the Eighth World Congress of the Fourth International, held in 1965, recognized the UK-based International Group as its second section. Then the leadership of the RSL, led by Ted Grant and their supporters, decided to leave the International [1] . The name of the new international trend was given by the name of the British newspaper Militant .
In 1974, the Workers International Committee was founded by supporters of the Militant trend from Britain, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, Greece, India and Sri Lanka. During the 1970s and 1980s, the most prominent role of the national sections was played by the British and Spanish. Consisting in the Labor Party and having influence in the city council of Liverpool [2] in the mid-1980s, CWI members in the UK played a leading role in resisting Margaret Thatcher's reforms [3] .
By the end of the 1980s, the International had sections in several countries around the world, including Chile, Australia, Israel, Nigeria and other countries.
Until the early 1990s, all sections of the International relentlessly followed the tactics of entrism into the Social Democratic and Workers Parties. However, back in 1982, the Labor Party voted to expel five members of the Militant editorial board. In 1991-1992, a split occurred in KRI, as a result of which a minority emerged from it, led by trend founder Ted Grant. Most organizations advocated secession from reformist parties (including the Labor Party in Britain) and the construction of openly revolutionary workers' organizations. In their opinion, by the beginning of the 1990s their nature had changed and now these parties are bourgeois. The minority of the International, united around Ted Grant, advocated continued work within the Labor Party.
After lengthy debates about the so-called “open corner” [4] and the 1991 conference, which confirmed the decision of the majority of the organization, minority leaders Ted Grant, Alan Woods , Rob Sewell and their supporters were expelled from the International [1] , and founded the Committee for the Marxist International which then became the International Marxist trend.
The policy of "open turn" meant the construction of independent open organizations. National sections begin to act as independent organizations, exposing their own candidates in general and municipal elections in different countries.
After leaving the Labor Party, the British section began to operate under the name "Militant Labor", and in 1997 the Socialist Party of England and Wales was established on its basis. KRI members were one of the founders and leaders of the Socialist Party of Scotland until the mid-2000s. Members of the German section of the International (“Socialist Alternative”) participated in the creation of the “ Labor and Social Justice - Electoral Alternative ” (“Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit - Die Wahlalternative”, WASG) in 2004-2005.
KRI organizations participate in local government elections - for example, in Sweden, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. In Ireland, deputies of the national parliament were elected from the Socialist Party, she also had a deputy in the European Parliament (in 2009-2011 - Joe Higgins , then Paul Murphy ).
CWI sections outside European countries continue to develop. One of the largest members of the international is the Nigerian Democratic Socialist Movement, which also founded the Socialist Party of Nigeria. The candidate of the United Socialist Party of Sri Lanka participated in the presidential election in 2005, gaining 0.36% of the vote. The Brazilian section of the CWI (“Freedom, Socialism and Revolution”) is participating in the work of the Socialism and Freedom Party.
CWI in Russia and the CIS
In 1990, the KRI section was created in the Soviet Union - the Committee for Worker Democracy and International Socialism (KRDMS), which in 1998 was renamed the organization " Socialist Resistance " ("SotsSopr"). In the fall of 2009, “Socialist Resistance” was expelled from the CWI, and the remaining supporters of the international began to act under the name of the Russian section of the Committee for the Working International. The reason for the split was the disagreement in formulating the organization’s position on the 2008 war in South Ossetia. SotsSopr teamed up with the Forward Socialist Movement , also founded by activists who had previously left KRI, into the Russian Socialist Movement in 2011.
Existing since 2006, the Socialist Resistance of Kazakhstan , representing KRI in Kazakhstan , is actively involved in the protest activity of independent trade unions and social movements. The Ukrainian section of the CWI - “Workers Resistance” ( Ukrainian: Robitnichy Opposite ) —was existed since 1994, but its activity ceased after the participation of members of its international department in the creation of fictitious organizations that became sections of other left-wing internationals was exposed in 2003. Subsequently, the CWI section appeared in Crimea, whose activists then joined the Marxist Organization .
At the beginning of 2016, after an almost two-year factional struggle that paralyzed the work of the Russian section of the CWI, the organization broke up [5] into the “Socialist Alternative” and the organization of the former factionalists, “Marxist Group 21”. The members of the “Socialist Alternative” remained supporters of the international Committee for the Workers International.
The “Socialist Alternative” takes a tough anti-capitalist and anti-xenophobic position. The organization advocates the creation of a labor party, the nationalization of large-scale industry, banks and natural resources as the basis of a democratic planned economy [6] . Consistently opposed to cuts in the social budget, political repression, the prohibition of abortion, government interference in the private lives of citizens. The “Socialist Alternative” supports the struggle of trade unions to improve the lives of workers, the women's and student movements, and the LGBT community [6] .
In June 2019, Leonid Krieger, a supporter of the “Socialist Alternative,” officially nominated himself for the Moscow City Duma election [7] .
See also
- Socialist movement of Kazakhstan
- European left
- European anti-capitalist left
- European United Left / Left Green North
- International socialist trend
- International Marxist Trend
- International Workers League
- Reunited Fourth International
- Party of European Socialists
- Russian socialist movement
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Ted Grant. short biography
- ↑ Kharitonov K. B. The Liverpool Protest Movement Against M. Thatcher's Neoconservative Policy.
- ↑ New school of falsification. Response to the Chelyabinsk Bureau of the Fourth International (1995)
- ↑ Marxists and the Labor Party of Britain
- ↑ Leo Sosnovsky. Marxism without obligation . Socialist Alternative (2016.03.07).
- ↑ 1 2 The program of supporters of the Committee for the Workers International - the "Socialist Alternative" . Socialist Alternative.
- ↑ Elections 2019 and the struggle for socialism . Socialist.News (June 6, 2019). Date of treatment June 6, 2019.
Links
Literature
- Global Turmoil. Capitalist Crisis - a Socialist Alternative. Resolutions and conclusions of the 7th World Congress of the Committee for a Workers International held in November 1998. - London: CWI Publications, 1999.
- Taaffe P. Marxism in today's world. - London: CWI Publications and Socialist Publications Ltd., 2006.
- Taaffe P. The Rise of Militant. - London: Militant Publications, 1995.
- A new stage in the development of world capitalism and the international labor movement. Theses of the international executive committee of KRI. Newport, December 2005./ Per. from English I. Yasin - M .: “Socialist Resistance”, 2006.