Congress of the International Socialist League

The first days of December, in Buenos Aires, delegates and guests from some thirty countries from the five continents, will give life to the first World Congress of the LIS. The opening ceremony will be in the historic Plaza de Mayo, which we will invite to attend en masse.

By Alejandro Bodart

The Congress will take place at a time when the pandemic is slowly beginning to recede and a new "normal" is making its way. Will the intense pace of the class struggle prior to the pandemic resume?, or we will go through a period of relative calm before new and vigorous rebellions dominate the world situation? How far will the "new cold war" escalate between the decadent but still hegemonic US imperialism and the emerging Chinese capitalist power?? Does the mass movement in the world turn to the right or is it polarized socially and politically?, opening up new possibilities for the revolutionary left to develop? What will be the main trends in the world economy in the medium and long term? Is it correct to define the world situation as pre-revolutionary despite the existing counteracting elements?? These will be just some of the topics that we will address in the first days of our next Congress.

The socio-environmental catastrophe to which the capitalist system is leading us in its stage of irreversible decomposition, the urgent need to change the energy matrix and end the extractivist model before it is too late, and fundamentally how to achieve it, with what program and the type of organization that is needed will be part of the agenda.

We will also address the ongoing rebellion of women and dissidents from a class and socialist perspective., the conservative counteroffensive that is beginning to gain strength and the debate that exists within the feminist movement with the reformist currents and the defenders of the nefarious identity politics.

A convulsed world

We will balance some of the main processes of the class struggle in recent years, starting with the black rebellion in the USA., the controversies that develop within the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) and what should be the strategy of those of us who continue to believe in the socialist revolution as the only way out to prevent humanity from falling into barbarism.

From Latin America we will analyze the enormous changes that have occurred since the rebellions in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru and also the weaknesses of these processes. The different experiences of construction of existing alternatives in the continent, the course that the PSOL of Brazil is taking and the advances and complexities of the Left Front of Argentina. About Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba will hold a special debate, since what happens there is closely followed by an important sector of activism and both the campismo and the actions of imperialism sow confusion that it is necessary to clear.

Another region of the world that will be represented in Congress and comes from large-scale confrontations is the Middle East, where the advances and setbacks of the Arab Spring were followed by rebellions in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and a new upsurge in the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people for their liberation, which forces us to develop an orientation that, taking into account the particularities of each country, allows us to act with a unified policy throughout the area.

In Europe, one of the most important debates will be the balance of experiences that aroused many expectations and ended up unraveling., like Syriza and Podemos or the French NPA, that comes from crisis to crisis. In Eastern Europe the most important process of recent times was the rebellion in Belarus, whose regime has currently unleashed a brutal repression against the workers' organizations that led it and that needs the broadest class solidarity at the international level.

Representatives of the heroic Saharawi people will also participate in our congress, in a relentless struggle to free themselves from the Moroccan yoke and advance towards their self-determination. And we will be able to analyze in depth the meaning of the Taliban triumph in Afghanistan from the intervention of our Pakistani colleagues, among other multiple processes.

A new moment

The LIS has a short existence. Just over two years have passed since we held our founding Conference in Barcelona and laid the foundations for the new organization. The pandemic forced us to delay our first Congress, which was originally planned for the middle of last year.

In a very short time we have spread to new countries and participated directly in great events of the class struggle. Our proposal to unite the revolutionaries on the basis of a principled program and a healthy method of operation, without false hegemony or impositions of one party on another and where nuances and differences can be processed in a fraternal atmosphere, has allowed us to strengthen ties between comrades who come from different traditions and intervene with unified campaigns.

This new construction model, that tries to begin to reverse the crisis that the revolutionary movement is experiencing at the international level, is what explains why the LIS, in a very short time, is becoming a small but dynamic reference pole.

We invite all our militants and supporters to participate in the pre-congress debates, that later we will socialize widely for the knowledge of all the fighters of our country and the world.