Intervention by Alejandro Bodart, leader of the MST and coordinator of the LIS in the International Act of the LIS to 80 years of the assassination of Leon Trotsky
It is a pride for me to be able to honor Leon Trotsky today, a 80 years after his assassination. It is a double pride to be able to do so from this Act organized by the young International Socialist League. Our dear LIS
Trotsky's contribution to the cause of the socialist revolution has been enormous.
Brilliant Speaker, adored by the masses. Best writer, what earned him the name of La Pluma. Exceptional theorist and organizer.
Each one of the aspects of his life separately and in itself would place him in a very prominent place. But his overall work undoubtedly places him alongside Marx and Engels., together with Lenin among the greatest revolutionaries in history.
From the lecterns, with his fiery speeches he managed to win the trust of the Russian working class, who elected him to represent her as President of the militant Petrograd Soviet of the Proletariat in the revolution of 1905 and again in the revolution of 1917.
Author of the most complete theory of the revolution, which served as a guide for the October revolution in Russia and continues to guide the destinies of the world revolution, The theory of permanent revolution. Which synthetically states that every revolution that does not advance until it destroys capitalism at the national level regresses and the same happens if it is isolated and does not spread to the entire world..
Organizer and leader from the Revolutionary Committee of the insurrection and seizure of power in October 1917, thus beginning the first triumphant Workers' State in history.
Foreign Minister in Charge of Negotiations to Extract the Rising Republic of the Soviets from the Carnage of the First World War.
Creator from nowhere of the Red Army, who defeated the forces of the old autocratic order supported by about 20 foreign armies, that I highlight him as one of the most important military strategists of the century 20. Admired by friends and foes.
Founder with Lenin of the III International, where their contributions during the first four of their congresses have served to guide revolutionaries to this day.
And a relentless combatant against the internal counterrevolution and the most nefarious bureaucracy that has ever been known and that would end up triumphing in the young workers' state until it disappeared..
Without him, the last Bolshevik, perhaps the experience of more than a century of working class struggles would have been lost. The revolutionary red thread that was built in the combats that allowed the ascent would have been cut, the crisis and the overcoming of 3 first international.
Imprisoned several times by Tsarism, banished and persecuted by Stalinism, he saw his comrades and his entire family exterminate one by one.
But he did not give up and was able to transmit the main teachings of Marxism to future generations., of Leninism and that is why it deserves its name, May Trotskyism be honored by all of us who recognize ourselves in its work.
Hated and feared by imperialism, that in the mouth of one of its most representative representatives of the time, I go so far as to say that the catastrophe caused by the Second World War, the only one that could perhaps benefit was Trotsky, how the first great war had benefited the Bolsheviks.
That is why the Stalinist bureaucracy, First I expelled him for the terror he had within the workers' state and then I assassinated him to try to prevent Churchill's prognosis from coming true.
Hated by all the bureaucrats entrenched in the labor movement and by all the reformists of the world, who see with class hatred how Trotskyists do not give in to their siren songs and continue fighting to destroy capitalism, for ending private property, for ending all privileges and facing all enemies of the working class equally.
None by the liberal intelligentsia, by university circles where many who call themselves revolutionaries drink since he prefers sweetened characters and most of the times innocuous to a figure of the stature of Trotsky, unwavering, questioner, militant, revolutionary to the bone.
Trotsky died in 1940, I leave a void that to this day we have not been able to overcome. Left us foundations of granite, his teachings, his most precious work, the Fourth International and the program to carry out the transition from capitalism to socialism.
But the distance between him and the cadres that remained at the head of the international was enormous.
After the second world war, the organization of the IV international was left in the hands of a management without any experience, no tradition or training in the working class, that through blunders and in the midst of a very unfavorable objective situation, I ended up dispersing the forces of Trotskyism in multiple organizations.
Opportunism and impressionism emerged, that caused a sector to be impacted with any direction that directed sectors of the masses. This is how Stalinism in its different variants was surrendered, to Castroism, to Sandinismo.
But sectarianism also emerged, who put an equal sign between the reformist leaderships and the processes they led, which led to abstain and not dispute the direction of immense processes of the class struggle.
In the 90, skepticism gained a huge weight, which led many currents to disbelieve in the socialist revolution and that is why they abandoned the construction of Leninist parties.
National Trotskyism also emerged. That they start from the wrong idea that from a national party you can gain mass influence, seize power and sustain itself without an international organization.
Those who continued to fight to build a world organization of revolutionaries did so separately from the rest, around a more or less developed party that builds politics for the whole world and smaller groups around it that are minor copies of the parent party.
The failures of all these experiments were most of the time covered with bureaucratic methods., that led to crises and divisions.
It is necessary to retake the legacy of Leon Trotsky. Leave skepticism behind. Fight opportunism and sectarianism. Rebuild a true proletarian internationalism.
A project is needed to unite and not divide the revolutionaries. That is the best tribute we can pay to the old Ukrainian revolutionary..
That is what those of us who have decided to build the International Socialist League propose to do..
We are convinced that we can only set up a mass international and help build strong revolutionary parties in our countries, if we know how to add under the same banners and principles to the different traditions that have been formed during all these years in the revolutionary movement.
If we learn to live with partial differences. If we rebuild a truly democratic method of operation. Definitely, if we recreate the confidence necessary to be able to debate everything, collectively elaborate and act jointly in the class struggle, intervening and developing aggressive campaigns. Gambling entirely in each revolutionary process in which we participate. And build like this, with patience, a new tradition, integrating and exceeding the existing ones.
It has been this proposal that has allowed us to develop rapidly. Meet with the comrades of Turkey, from Pakistan, engage in fruitful dialogue with colleagues from Australia and Brazil.
Develop ourselves in Eastern Europe, where we are participating in the rebellion that shakes Belarus and building a new revolutionary organization in Ukraine.
Advance in Europe, from the rebellion of the Catalan people and the yellow vests of France.
Set foot in the US, where the black rebellion and the left turn of the youth is shaking the empire.
Participate in the Lebanese rebellion together with the youth of the Movement for Change and begin to dialogue with sectors of the vanguard that rise up in Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, western sahara.
Build ourselves in the midst of the Chilean revolution and the Nicaraguan rebellion, extending our arms to all Latin America.
And we go for more.
The LIS has emerged at a very important time. Decisive. The crisis that broke out in 2008 and it was climbing to incredible levels, has detonated a new world situation that is on the verge of becoming pre-revolutionary, if not that we have already entered that dynamic.
The mass ascent has begun and we have to prepare for increasingly extraordinary events. It will NOT be a bed of roses. We will face increasingly acute polarization, where the counterrevolution will work intensely to defeat the working class and lead us to barbarism.
But we have powerful weapons to face them. To win. To seize opportunities and make leaps in our construction.
Let us follow the teachings of our dear Leon Trotsky.
Capitalism has no reform. We must destroy it and on its rubble build a new society. A socialist world.
Let's stay true to our class, the working class, which is the only creative class upon which an overcoming society can be built, without exploitation and oppression of any kind. Let's go ahead and rebuild our forces always with her.
Let's promote the broadest workers' democracy, which is the only one thousand times higher, not just any autocracy or dictatorship, but to the most developed bourgeois democracy. And let's educate ourselves by practicing it to the end in each factory, in each union that we manage to influence.
Let's build strong revolutionary parties, leninistas, Bolsheviks, which is the only weapon that can lead us to victory against imperialism, The bourgeoisie, bureaucracies of all kinds and reformism.
And let us be soldiers of the permanent revolution in each country where we act since only by deepening the revolution until the workers rule and we achieve socialism in the world can we make this life paradise, where in peace, humanity advance from the realm of necessity to the realm of happiness and abundance.